Strange and Beautiful
by Samsonwentbacktobed
Summary: Esme Cullen was so overjoyed to know there was a girl out there for her son that she simply couldn't wait for fate to push them together...so she devised a plan!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Just an idea bubble I had. Please note the following:**

**Andrew is a thirteen year old boy the Cullens have adopted, but since Carlisle has patented a new method of changing into a vampire, Andrew is still slightly human. His full change won't be complete for a few years yet giving him time to grow (who wants to be thirteen forever?), so he still eats food and bathes and grows like a human.**

**Bella is not an only child. She has three sisters**

**Cari (age 20)**

**Evie (age 17 and Bella's twin sister)**

**Cece (age 13 and Andrew's bff)**

**Also: I DO NOT own Twilight! It is the wonderful creation on none other than Stephenie Meyer herself!**

*******************************

Edward

I didn't expect to see Chief Swan when I dropped by the hospital to see Carlisle. He was sitting on the edge of one of the waiting room chairs with his head in his hands and it stopped me in my tracks. What was he doing here? Was Bella alright? She'd seemed fine when she'd left school…

"Here you go, Chief Swan," Carlisle suddenly appeared to hand him a medical report, shot me a humored glance with pointed thoughts.

_Bella isn't here._

I nodded imperceptibly to show I understood, but then had to frown at the sudden mystery. What was the chief of police doing here, then?

"Oh, there you are Carlisle, Edward! What a lovely surprise!" Esme beamed as she strode over to us. "Hello, Chief Swan!"

"Hello," Bella's quiet father greeted Esme –and a bit dolefully at that. "Just getting a quick check up from the good doctor here."

"I'm sorry, Charlie," Carlisle corrected, "but there's nothing quick about this. The mold in your home has had a bit of an effect on you."

"Mold?" Esme looked concerned. "Oh, Chief Swan! I'm so sorry! Your house must be in an uproar right now!"

"Yeah, it is," Mr. Swan nodded in disappointment and ran a hand over his pallid face.

Carlisle was right, now that I really took time to examine the man. Charlie Swan was very sick.

"They've got tents and fumes all over the place," Charlie continued, "told me it wouldn't be inhabitable for a week. Can you believe that? I guess I could find a hotel or something…"

"Not for you," Carlisle again tried to get through to the man. "You are sick, Charlie. I'm going to have to admit you for overnight stay."

"Overnight!" Chief Swan exclaimed. "I can't stay here overnight, Dr. Cullen! What about my girls? My daughters are going to arrive in town at any moment and it's bad enough I've got no place for them to stay, but if I'm in the hospital…?"

Daughters? I thought to myself. I didn't know Bella wasn't an only child.

"Well," Esme quickly glanced at Carlisle with a look we both know to fear.

She had an idea.

"Esme," I tried to stop her as the tone of her thoughts reached me, but she was already plowing right ahead with an offer.

"We could keep your girls for the week."

Was she mad? I turned to my father, waiting for him to come up with a reason why we couldn't other than the devastating fact that if the Swan girls came into our home, there was a very likely chance they'd never come back out again!

"Carlisle," I called to him when seconds had ticked by and he still hadn't responded, but Esme had more pull than I did, and it was obvious by her stare that she wanted this, for some reason, and wouldn't be happy unless she got it.

"We have an extra bedroom if your daughters don't mind sharing," she told Chief Swan. "How many daughters do you have?"

"Four," he answered. "Listen, this is awfully nice of you, but I don't want to put you out at all. My girls are tough and can take care of themselves if they need to, and we've got family everywhere so I'm sure they could just take a train or something somewhere else."

"Nonsense!" Esme insisted. "Your daughters are coming to see you, and in a week they'll be back in your house. Until then Carlisle and I would be thrilled to have them around. Absolutely thrilled, wouldn't we Carlisle?"

_Carlisle, don't let her do this!_

_She really wants this, Edward. I don't know why it's so important to her, but if it makes her happy…_

_Have you forgotten what nearly happened to me the first day I met Bella? Now you're going to let her and her three sisters stay at our house?_

_I don't know, Edward. I can't see how this is going to work, but I don't think Esme would go through with something like this unless she was sure she could trust you._

How could she be so sure she could trust me when I knew for a fact I couldn't trust myself? I was going to ruin this, I was sure. I'd either find a new home for a week or ruin this.

"Yes," Carlisle spoke openly to Charlie though his thoughts had told me a very different story. "It would be our pleasure to have your girls for the week, Chief Swan. Now, why don't you go on into the back and let the nurses take care of you."

******************************

I sank even further into my depression when I got home to see Alice in the kitchen, excitedly preparing a dinner of sausage and ziti. She had pots simmering under the less than watchful eyes of Emmett and Jasper, and was scolding Andrew by the time I appeared for letting something sit in the oven for too long.

"Hi, Edward!" she chirped as I came through the doorway, frowning at everything around me.

"So, I see you know about the Swan girls," I mused just as Rosalie entered and angrily smashed a plate against the farthest wall.

"This is so stupid!" she fumed. "What is Esme thinking? What are we all supposed to do-sit around and pretend to be human? And Alice where do you get off cooking dinner?"

"It's six p.m.!" Alice shrugged reasonably. "The girls will probably be hungry when they get here."

"So now I have to choke down some of this crap, too?" Rosalie grabbed a handful of baked ziti and threw it on the floor where she could stomp on it with those fatalistic heels of hers. "This is stupid!" she shrieked. "Why should I have to pretend to be something I'm not in my own home?"

"Then go upstairs, Rose!" Emmett suggested while he tried to do as Alice instructed and season the sausages. "God, sometimes I swear you're just unbelievable with these tantrums you throw!"

"I'm not throwing a tantrum!"

"You _are_ having quite the hissy fit," Alice agreed, "and you have the least to complain about. I mean, Edward is the one who should be the most worried about all of this, and he's taking it very well. Good job, Edward."

"I can't believe I'm agreeing with Rosalie," I murmured, "but this entire affair is a disaster."

"Thank you!" Rosalie triumphed. "Finally someone has some sense! We should all have a talk with Esme as soon as she gets home and tell her to send the humans back!"

"Hey!" Andrew looked a little wounded, but –as always –was quick to hide it. I always thought that was why he and Jasper got along so well; neither of them were too keen on gushing emotions and unnecessary words. The two of them could sit together for hours in total silence. "Humans aren't so bad."

"And where would you send the Swan girls, Rose?" Alice argued. "They have nowhere to go, and I for one think this is a great opportunity for all of us to get to know Bella. I mean, she _will_ belong to our family one day."

"Stop it, Alice!" I couldn't help the growl in my throat. "That's not true! Things can still change."

"No, they can't, Edward. I told you-Bella only has two options."

"Right now the other option seems a little closer to home, if you ask me," Emmett snorted. "Alone in the house with us for a week? Whew! If you survive this, Edward, then you'll deserve an award!"

"Edward will not hurt Bella!" Alice spoke in her serious voice, the voice that had one foot in the "right now" and the other in the "not yet". "None of us will hurt Bella or make Esme feel badly about this decision, alright? So let's all do what we can to make this good, and Rosalie if you can't control yourself then maybe Emmett is right and you should wait upstairs."

"I'm leaving this house!" Rosalie stormed and whirled around to leave.

"Rose, don't be like that!" Emmett tried to reason with her, but she kept walking, heedless of him.

"Aren't you going to go after her?" Jasper asked him, but he violently shook his head.

"And pass this up?" Emmett challenged. "Not a chance! I'm all for a big laugh, and seeing Edward choke down this food with Bella so close to him is going to be the most hilarious thing I may ever see. I'm staying right here. Rose will come around."

"You're sick, Emmett," I growled at him, but his laughter bubbled out in response.

He was in too good a mood.

_Nice house! This might not be such a bad idea after all!_

_How does Charlie know these people? He hates people with money!_

_Bella, you look sick._

_I don't think this is a good idea._

"What's wrong, Edward?" Alice asked me, stealing a glimpse at my face.

"The Swan girls are here," I announced, feeling the tension settling into my shoulders and fists, nevertheless I followed as my siblings all piled out of the kitchen to meet the girls where they now stood in the foyer.

I was surprised by the giddiness radiating off of Andrew as he scampered ahead of us all, eyes alight and overgrown blonde curls bouncing behind him. I'd never seen the boy emerge from his apathetic silences long enough to be happy about anything, not even all the things Esme bent over backward to do for him. Ever since Carlisle had rescued him from that terrible car wreck, we'd all known Andrew to be the silent Jasper type, and seeing him now smiling and eagerly going to meet our guests was nothing short of puzzling.

"What's that about?" Emmett posed the question to us.

"He met the youngest Swan girl earlier in the week," Alice explained. "I guess he really liked her."

I found that surprising, but it was business as usual when Bella's scent assaulted me without so much as a by-your-leave. I felt the flames begin to scorch my throat, the excess of venom in my mouth, the familiar ache in my body to spring at her, lunge across this narrow space and relish what I was smelling, sink my teeth into that hideously delicious scent I was smelling.

_You're going to be fine, Edward_, Alice told me as she easily fell in step with me, assuring me with the softness in her eyes. _It's all going to work out just fine._

_This is a mistake!_ I shook my head at her. _Alice, everyone gives me too much credit! I have a hard enough time handling one class with her everyday; how am I supposed to handle smelling her in my own home_?

_Because the more you talk to her, the more you'll hate yourself if you ever hurt her. I know,_ she tapped her head wickedly, _I saw it_.

"Hey, Kids!" Esme greeted us the minute we rounded the corner. She and Carlisle were helping the four girls out of their jackets and pushing the bags into the far corner. "We brought some special visitors! These are Chief Swan's daughters –Carilyna, Evelyn, and Cecelia. Oh, and Edward? You remember Bella, don't you?"

"_**Sometimes the last thing you want comes in first."**_–Aqualung


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Just an idea bubble I had. Please note the following:**

**Andrew is a thirteen year old boy the Cullens have adopted, but since Carlisle has patented a new method of changing into a vampire, Andrew is still slightly human. His full change won't be complete for a few years yet giving him time to grow (who wants to be thirteen forever?), so he still eats food and bathes and grows like a human.**

**Bella is not an only child. She has three sisters**

**Cari (age 20)**

**Evie (age 17 and Bella's twin sister)**

**Cece (age 13 and Andrew's bff)**

**Also: I DO NOT own Twilight! It is the wonderful creation of none other than Stephenie Meyer herself!**

*******************************

Edward

"Izzy!"

Andrew ran straight into Bella's arms like an eager child despite the fact that he was a good head taller than her, and she cradled him in the circle of her arms with a laugh at his excitement to see her.

"Hey, Andy!" she greeted him back just as he moved on to hug the other girls. "It's great seeing you, Kid!"

Izzy and Andy. They had pet names for each other?

_I thought you said Andrew met the youngest Swan girl earlier in the week?_ I asked Alice. _Why does he know Bella so well?_

_He did meet the youngest Swan girl earlier in the week,_ Alice defended herself, _just not for the first time. Don't you pay attention to Andrew at all, Edward?_

I was ashamed that the answer to that question was "no". Whether I particularly cared for the kid or not, he was still my brother.

I scrutinized each of the Swan girls to see how much they resembled Bella if they resembled her at all. They were all exactly the same height, for one thing, and they all had the same thick, chocolate brown hair. The differences came into play in their faces, in Bella's brown eyes contrasted by Evelyn's lighter hazel ones, in Carilyna's dark, almost black eyes as opposed to Cecelia's light gray ones.

Where had that come from, I wondered? But I wasn't worried about getting any of them confused; they were so distinctively different one would have to be a fool not to notice.

Carilyna's high maintenance was second only to Rosalie's with her carefully applied makeup and designer luggage. She clicked across the foyer in stiletto boots and a low cut sweater I knew Bella would never have worn, and tousled her fingers through her straightened hair alluringly, though I could tell that she didn't have eyes for my brothers and I –which was strange, I noted. Usually human girls melted for us.

Cecelia moped across the foyer and out of the way, as well, and I was glad that Rosalie wasn't there to poke fun at the poor girl. She looked as if she'd hastily thrown clothes over her body just to get dressed…in the dark…from a trash bin. The amazing thing was, her vibe screamed that she didn't care. She wore her lip ring proudly and let her hair hang in her face rebelliously, arms folded across her chest.

"This should be interesting," I murmured, but was caught off guard again by the brilliant smile Andrew tossed her, the brilliant smile she returned to him.

"Look what the cat dragged in!" he teased her.

"Shut up!" she chuckled, hitting him on the arm. "You owe me a place to crash since that stupid science project you had gave my dad's house mold!"

"What are you talking about?"

"The project you brought over about a month ago?" she reminded him. "The one that exploded because you added baking soda when I'd told you not to? When you told me you'd clean it up, did you get it off the walls?"

"Um…" Andrew looked guilty, "I thought it would just, you know, go away. I mean, they're just walls, right?"

"Andrew!" Esme was appalled. "Chief Swan has mold in his home because of you?"

"That's not even cool, Andy!" Evelyn scolded him but couldn't help finding it a little funny –Emmett certainly did.

"So, these girls are here right now because of you?" Emmett wheezed. "Ha! Nice going, Andrew!"

"No, we're glad to have the Swan girls here," Alice spoke up and then made a quick grab for Bella's unsuspecting hand. "We never get to talk in school."

"Uh, no, we don't," Bella agreed uncomfortably but still allowed herself to be led into the kitchen. "Something smells good."

"We made dinner!" Alice beamed and directed triumphant thoughts at me. "Do you and your sisters like baked ziti?"

"We'll eat anything as long as Cari didn't cook it," Evelyn lightly teased Carilyna as the rest of the girls settled themselves at the table with us following cautiously behind.

They thought the food smelled good. I wished I'd have helped Alice make it.

"I know how to cook, Evie!" Cari retorted with her lip curled in indignation. "I made those brownies for the bake sale that people were raving about, remember?"

"You didn't make those brownies!" Cecelia accused. "Sarah Lee made them! All you did was add water!"

"Now, Cece, that's not fair," Evie interrupted. "Cari _did_ have to press the 'Bake' button on the stove."

"Shut up!" Cari tossed one of the napkins from her waiting plate to her sisters who quickly followed the action by throwing more and more napkins back at her.

"Girls," Bella intervened with the firm authority of a mother talking to her children, "let's be nice to each other."

So this was the family dynamic? Why was I not surprised? Of course Bella would be the one in charge; she was the responsible one, the most level headed. Her sisters heard her command and put their hands in their laps respectfully like little children who had been scolded, and Alice and Esme excitedly dished out the ziti, eager to know if the recipe was any good.

"Well, Girls," Carlisle entered the kitchen, "I put your bags in the guest room –last door on the right, remember? And you'll have to excuse my children but they've already had their dinner, so…"

I couldn't help wincing at that, wishing evilly that I could sit beside Bella and keep watching her carry on with her sisters, keep seeing her be as natural as she was being right now. Seeing her like this –feet bare, head resting on Evie –I realized how uncomfortable and lonely she was at school. She couldn't be herself there because too many people wanted things from her, but here in my kitchen she was freer than I'd ever seen her…and beautiful, so strange and beautiful.

But then again, all of the Swan girl were strange and beautiful, doubly so by the fact that as they sat before me I realized that I couldn't hear any of their minds.

Not a sound.

The conversation I'd heard earlier must've been their audible voices instead of the thoughts I'd assumed they were.

"Oh, please don't leave, kids!" Esme begged us as she herself took a seat toward the head of the table. "Let's stay and at least talk with the girls. Come on! It'll be like an old-fashioned family dinner!"

So that's what Esme wanted! It came to me with a jolt. She wanted family time in the most basic, traditional way –a way that none of us could've provided…so she'd gotten an outside source.

_Did you know?_ I asked Carlisle and Alice at once.

_I suspected, but I didn't know_, Carlisle admitted as he seated himself at the head of the table, closest to Cece and Cari who sat opposite each other. _I honestly thought she simply wanted to see you and Bella together._

_She does_, Alice joined in as she seated herself and Jasper beside Evelyn. _But Esme also wants this, all of us sitting around together. It's not so much to ask._

It wasn't much to ask at all, actually, but it made me feel so badly to know that my mother had wanted time with her children and had to settle for time with someone else's. So, I came fully into the kitchen and prepared to sit down when Emmett cut devilishly in front of me to take the seat between Jasper and Andy, leaving only one more seat left.

"You heard Esme, Edward!" he jeered while the rest of my family chuckled silently to themselves. "Take a seat!"

_You know I have to make you pay for this?_ I asked him as I lowered myself into the seat beside Bella who, for her part, only made the situation worse by her outright refusal to acknowledge my presence at all. She kept her eyes on her plate and two fingers gently twisting a lock of that chocolate hair.

_I'll take my chances_, Emmett replied. _Aw! What a pretty couple! Relax your face, Man! Don't let her know you want to kill her._

_You both do look very nice together, Edward_, Alice shrugged helplessly. _Don't fight it._

_Don't fight it but wish you could bite it! _Emmett guffawed with mental laughter._ Can't have it but wish you could grab it!_

_You're sick, _I spat at him, and the mental laughter grew so loud it became audible in chuckles.

"Emmett, where's Rosalie?" Esme asked, glancing about for the missing storm cloud.

"She went for a walk," Emmett shrugged carelessly. "So, Bella, tell us about yourself."

"Emmett," I stiffened.

"Emmett, please let Miss Swan enjoy her meal," Carlisle entreated. "She and her sisters have had a long ordeal today with their father in the hospital, and your mother and I want them to get as much rest here as they possibly can."

"I can tell you all about Izzy," Andrew continued to astonish us with his jovial outbursts. "She's from Phoenix," he began careful yet amused under the weight of Bella's stare, "she hates Forks, and she walks around naked when she thinks nobody's home."

"What?!" Emmett howled.

Bella covered her face, blushing more deeply than I'd ever seen her blush before, and the burning ripped my throat all the more fiercely. Carlisle and Esme stared at Andrew, appalled, but as for the other Swan girls –and even Alice and Jasper! –there was nothing to do but laugh.

"Andy, for the final time," Bella stressed, indicating they'd had this same conversation before, "I was _not_ naked! Cece just told you I was, okay?"

_Hey, Edward_! I heard Emmett call me. _I bet you wish you'd been invited to that party, don't you?_

_You're sick_, I told him again, and he found something about the way I was looking at him so funny that he burst into laughter right then and there.

"And you know what, Andy?" Bella continued. "You weren't even supposed to be at my house that day in the first place because Charlie grounded Cece and you had a project due the next day. So what now?"

"Izzy, it's okay," Andrew soothed her. "I never sit around and think about you, I swear."

"Ha!" the kitchen surged in another uproar of laughter, and Bella turned an even darker shade of pink.

"Andrew," Carlisle warned, he and Esme thoroughly shocked and disappointed in him, "that's enough for the evening."

"Oh, it's okay, Mr. Cullen!" Cari gasped for air through her laughing fit. "Andy is one of us! We Swan girls just love him –he can say whatever he wants to us."

"Well," Esme recovered gracefully, but I could see the twinge of hurt Cari's words had given her, that Andrew would live a secret life away from her, "I had no idea _Andy_," she carefully tried out his nickname, "was so beloved."

"The Swan girls have a way of bringing that out in people," Andy nodded and darted me a meaningful glance in a silent message.

_Izzy is a really great girl, Edward. She's a really great girl._

_I know_, I nodded with more truth than I was ready to face, more jealousy that he was so close to her than I was prepared to acknowledge. _I know, Andy_.

"And how stunning you girls are!" Esme gushed.

"Yes!" Alice input. "Carilyna, I just love your style! That sweater and those boots are fabulous!"

"Yeah, Cari's great," Cece agreed, "just don't take her out in the sun or she'll melt. You know, all that plastic…" she pretended to grab her breasts.

Carilyna had...

"You did not just say that!" but Bella couldn't help laughing either. "Cece! That's so true but –Cece!"

"No, she's right!" Evie interjected innocently and then turned to her older sister in such sweetness I could tell she acted as the baby of the family. "Cari, how come Jeremy can pay for your new body and your new nose" –

"He did not buy me a new nose!" Cari railed in a mixture of shock and embarrassment. "He paid to fix my nose because it was crooked, and it was crooked because you" –she pointed an accusatory finger dead at Bella –"threw a basketball at my face and gave me a cock-eyed nose! I'm surprised I got a guy to look at me at all with a crooked nose!"

"Don't act like you didn't know I have no hand-eye coordination when you told me to play with you!" Bella defended herself.

"The hoop was over here, Bella!" Cari extended her right hand as far out as she could. "My face was over here!" she extended her left hand as far out as she could. "How did you mess that up?"

"Leave me alone."

"Why does Jeremy pay to fix you up," Evie continued, "but he won't pay for an engagement ring? Put a ring on it!"

"Oh, my God! You are not talking about this in front of these strangers!" Cari wailed. "Everybody shut up and stay out of my business!"

"You're our sister. You are our business!" Evie argued. "We're just looking out for your well being."

"Yeah," Cece piped in. "We think you let Jeremy borrow the keys to your car a lot, and if he likes riding your car so much then he should just buy it already and stop making you look like such a slut."

"I am not a slut!" Cari clutched horrified hands at her throat. "Andy! Andy, do you think I'm slutty?"

"I'm going to sit this one out, okay?" Andy backed out.

"You can't sit it out!" Cece teased him. "You started this so finish it! Answer her –is she slutty?"

"Well, then, I agree with Izzy."

"Izzy didn't say anything."

"And I second that motion."

"Finally," Carlisle sniped, none too pleased at the behavior of his youngest son though I had absolutely no idea what to make of it.

I couldn't remember ever seeing a sister dynamic like this one before. Rosalie and Alice weren't exactly close, besides the fact that Alice never needed advice for her problems because she always knew how they'd turn out, and Rosalie didn't care about problems unless they had something to do with her (i.e. tonight's dinner gathering). Was this behavior normal, I wondered? But then again, what was normal about a middle child like Bella having more pull than an oldest child like Carilyna?

Normal! I had to laugh at myself. Nothing about Bella was normal. Why would the role she played in her family be any different?

"I just think," Bella input, "that we should all let Jeremy and Cari live their own lives. If they want to live in sin, have bastard children, and then go to hell, who are we to tell them they can't?"

"Oh, you're real funny, Izzy!" Cari spooned some of the ziti at her. "You're real funny!"

"I think so, too," Bella smiled sweetly and melted my heart of stone, but I was also worried by her sarcasm. Were her views on relationships that nontraditional?

"But don't you want to get married, Carilyna?" Esme asked in concern. "Isn't this the right young man for you or are you, ah…Emmett? What was that phrase you taught me yesterday?"

"Side-dipping," Emmett supplied shamelessly.

"Right!" Esme beamed. "Are you side-dipping, Carilyna?"

"Esme!" I tried to stop her since Emmett wasn't about to and Alice and Jasper were having a quiet chuckle about the whole thing.

"What?" she turned on me while Carlisle rubbed her back in loving amusement of his own. "Edward, I can be cool! I can learn teen lingo! Don't you think I'm a cool mom, Bella?"

"Um," Bella smiled uncertainly, "yeah, sure! I mean, it takes someone pretty cool to let four girls they don't know crash with them for a week."

"And it's my pleasure!" Esme insisted. "But, Carilyna, I have to agree with your sisters on this one. If you're serious about this Jeremy guy then you should start talking marriage."

"I want to," Cari confessed to Esme pitifully, "I really do! But at the same time that's a lot of pressure to put on him and I don't want him to feel pressured at all."

"I'll take care of it."

"What?" we all turned to stare at Bella's simple offer with confused faces.

"You will?" Cari was as skeptical as the rest of us. "How?"

"The guilt," Evie smiled, understanding before the rest of us. "Izzy is famous for her guilt! She inherited it straight from Nana."

"The guilt," Andrew hissed between bared teeth. "Izzy's guilt trips will have you doing things you never in a million years thought you'd be doing for reasons you won't even know!"

"Sounds fearsome," Carlisle's eye twinkled teasingly on Bella and she slouched down in her chair uncomfortably.

"You guys make me sound evil!" she complained. "No, but seriously, Cari, I'll take care of Jeremy's commitment issues. By this time next year, you'll have your wedding."

"Really, Izzy?" Cari was getting emotional. "I'll return the favor one day –I swear!"

"No need," Cece snickered. "Izzy's going to spend her life taking care of Renee and Charlie in their old age, and by the time she'll finally be ready to date, she'll be too old and wrinkly!"

It was a joke. All the sisters laughed. Even Bella laughed.

But it wasn't funny. Not to me. All I could see before my eyes was the picture Cece had described of old and wrinkly Bella living all alone. Old and wrinkly Bella. I felt my family's inconspicuous gazes on my face and knew I'd better pull it together and show them that I was alright, but I couldn't bring myself to pretend. Those words spoken as a joke had cut me in tender places I hadn't even known I possessed.

***************************************

"You handled yourself very well tonight," Esme praised me, finding me out on the balcony with the telescope as usual, only tonight I wasn't looking at stars.

I was looking at Bella, asleep with her sisters in the lower room under a pale shaft of moonlight that turned her skin blue and kissed her lips in the most distracting way.

"She's a beautiful girl," Esme followed my line of sight. "I hope Emmett didn't give you too much grief over dinner…well, _their _dinner. Edward? Edward, I'm not doing this to hurt you at all –I promise! All I want…I just want…ugh!" she sighed, frustrating herself. "You should've seen the way the two of you looked sitting across from each other tonight! Won't you talk to her a little while she's here? She's very nice and I just know she'll love you back if you give her the chance. I know she will!"

"Esme," I faced her for the first time, trying not to show how now –even now –the brokenness of the situation was eating me alive. "What you're doing is more than kind and I know you're doing it out of love" –

"I just don't want you to be alone anymore, Son," she told me, and I knew that if she could cry her eyes would be welling with tears right now. "Bella is the one for you and she's here! She's right here, but you barely even look at her. Why Edward? Are you afraid to love her?"

"But this is hopeless," I continued my speech. "I realized something tonight seeing Bella with her sisters and how they laugh at each other and poke fun and enjoy each other. I would hate myself if took her away from that, from her family and everyone she loves. So, I know how you wanted this to happen: with Bella and I in such close proximity we'd more readily fall for each other, correct? But it's not going to happen, Esme. I can't take her away from the people her love her. I don't have that right."

She thought on that for a long while, making little sour faces as if it were a bitter truth not sitting too well on her stomach. But her response when she finally gave it was accepting, comforting.

"So long as you're okay with this…?"

"I'm fine," I assured her.

"Then so am I. I'm sorry I interfered."

"Please don't be!" I begged her. "You did this out of love."

"Always a gentleman!" she teased me with a smile. "I wish you'd let someone love you."

"_**I've been watching your world from afar…**_

_**I've been secretly falling apart **_

_**Unseen." **_–Aqualung__


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Just an idea bubble I had. Please note the following:**

**Andrew is a thirteen year old boy the Cullens have adopted, but since Carlisle has patented a new method of changing into a vampire, Andrew is still slightly human. His full change won't be complete for a few years yet giving him time to grow (who wants to be thirteen forever?), so he still eats food and bathes and grows like a human.**

**Bella is not an only child. She has three sisters**

**Cari (age 20)**

**Evie (age 17 and Bella's twin sister)**

**Cece (age 13 and Andrew's bff)**

**Also: I DO NOT own Twilight! It is the wonderful creation of none other than Stephenie Meyer herself!**

** ~*Please note that constructive feedback is much appreciated*~**

*******************************

Edward

The next day was a Saturday, gray and wet. I was certain the twist in weather was due to Rosalie's return home, a storm cloud in and of herself. She took one whiff of our human-scented air and physically recoiled in disgust, hurrying to the sanctity of her and Emmett's room as if it could infect her.

"Filthy Swan girls!" she murmured in passing, but not so low that Bella didn't hear her or start feeling her hair self-consciously at Rosalie's words.

"That's not true!" Esme tried to smooth over while darting a venomous glance after Rosalie. "Bella, you and your sisters have been an absolute delight even after just one day! So, ignore Rosalie. The rest of us are overjoyed that you're here."

"Thanks," Bella smiled prettily before returning to the stove where Alice was helping her fry eggs.

Breakfast, I realized. Of course the girls would be hungry first thing in the morning!

_ You could help make the pancakes_, Alice offered in a pointedly good mood. _Bella's cooking for five people so she could really use the help._

I admit I toyed with the idea before sharply jolting back to my senses.

_ No, Alice_.

_ I'll leave if that'll make you more comfortable_.

_ No, Alice_.

_ Edward, I saw you doing this, though!_

_ And now you're just lying,_ I called her bluff and she spun around to poke her tongue out at me playfully.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Andrew entered the kitchen with a huge smile for the breakfast spread taking shape on the table. "Are you guys making pancakes? Oh, give me some of those!"

"You have to wait for everybody else!" Bella laughed at him while simultaneously beating him away from the skillet with a spatula. "Move, Andy! You have to wait!"

"But the girls are still sleeping!" Andrew whined. "I'm going to go wake them up!"

"Do it nicely," Esme warned, but Andrew pilfered a deep pot and a ladle and disappeared to the girls' bedroom. "Andrew Cullen! Don't disturb those girls!"

It was too late. Before the words were fully out of Esme's mouth Andrew was already banging the pot raucously to jolt the girls awake…but the noise came to an abrupt end with a sharp yelp of pain from Andrew.

"Are you crazy, Andy?" Cece asked as she, Cari, and Evie all filed into the kitchen and fell into chairs, groggy and upset. "What do you think you're doing making us come in here like this?"

"Now you're family has to see us with no makeup, no brushed teeth, rollers in our hair…" Cari complained even as she took her hair down and almost desperately applied some gunk from a MAC tube onto her skin.

Bella would probably never use that stuff, and you know what? She didn't need to. There she stood in pajama pants and a beat-up, slightly oversized tee and she still looked beautiful; hair a mess at the top of her head, a light sheen of sweat glistening on her forehead, and cheeks beautifully flushed.

_ Well! That's quite a compliment_! Alice butted noisily into my musings. _You should tell Bella how you feel!_

I ignored her and seated myself at the table next to the girls as Esme quietly bid me, and tried not to wince in repulsion when a plate of pancakes and scrambled eggs was placed before me.

"Thank you," I told Evelyn instead, moved by the pure sweetness of her smile trying to be nice to me, but then I was immediately put on edge by Bella's stare from across the room and beneath the falling wisps of her hair. I knew what she was thinking, or what she was expecting rather, so I took the fork and shoved some eggs into my mouth.

Disgusting!

_ T__hank you, Edward_, Esme beamed at me.

_ What we won't do for love, eh Edward_? Alice chuckled.

Andy outright laughed, but thankfully no one clued Emmett or Jasper in as they seated themselves at the table with us.

"What's up?" Emmett asked.

"Nothing," I replied past the greasy lump sitting in my stomach. It would be murder to work that up later, but Bella seemed convinced though it surprised me that she'd noticed enough about me to see that I rarely…never…ate human food.

She was interested in me.

She was afraid of me.

"Would you like some pancakes, Cinnamon?" Cece asked Cari who made a face at her in reply.

"No, brat, I don't want pancakes...well actually I do, but stop calling me Cinnamon!"

"Cinnamon?" Alice asked curiously. "Is that your pet name, Carilyna? Cinnamon?"

"No," Cece smirked. "It's her" –

"Stop it, Cecelia," Bella intervened as she sat beside Alice and Andy. "We all picked on Cari enough yesterday. Leave her alone."

"Well, I'm proud of Cari!" Evie came to her sister's defense. "So what if she was a stripper? She paid her own way through college and finished in two years!"

"A stripper?" Emmett howled.

"Oh, my God!" Cari hid her face in her hands.

"Okay!" Bella intervened once again. "Seriously! Everybody leave Cari alone! We all know there isn't exactly a college fund for the Swan girls, right? Cari had to be innovative –so what? Now stop dragging up her dirt in front of the Cullens."

"And you know what?" Cari defended herself. "I was never a stripper! I was a twirler, okay? I twirled!"

"On poles," Andy murmured.

"Bella is right, everyone," Esme chose this moment to speak. "That's enough."

They lapsed into silence, then, forcing the rest of us to fake eating breakfast since chewing and swallowing were no longer options for me. Emmett poured his eggs into the vase, Alice skillfully threw hers over her shoulder and into the trash, I have no idea how Jasper made his food disappear, but as for myself I played a little prank by tossing my food onto Bella's plate.

She didn't notice at all, not that I was surprised. Human or not, the Swan girls could put away some serious food! Most girls tried to watch their figures, correct? But these girls ate whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and as much of it as they wanted. Even now, they were reaching over each other for seconds…and thirds.

But I barely concentrated on that. I was too bothered by what Bella had said, how there was no college fund for the Swan girls. It made sense, I supposed, if Charlie was a small town policeman and the girls' mother was a teacher; it must've been hard to put away enough to send four girls to a university, but it seemed so unfair. Bella was smart and capable. If she wanted to go to college she should've been able to go to college.

_ It's strange to think about things like that, isn't it_? Alice chimed in. _We never worry about having enough money, and Bella has to work on a budget._

_ Stay out of it, Alice_, I warned her.

_ I'm just saying_! She tried to justify herself. _If Bella was in our family she could go to any college she wanted. You just said so yourself that she deserved it_.

_ I'm serious, Alice_!

"So, what do you girls have planned for today?" Esme asked the girls.

"Well," Evie sounded giddy, "After breakfast, Izzy is going to call Jeremy and give him The Guilt!"

"Dun dun dun!" Andy gave the sound effects.

"I've got to hear that! Bella a bully? That'll be hilarious!" Emmett announced to Bella teasingly, but I could tell by her expression she wasn't listening. She was staring intently at his huge bicep resting on the table, eyes bugging out of her face.

A consuming anger choked me. Why was she staring at Emmett? What did he have that was so special that she could look at him that way?

"See something you like?" he teased her, but her answer was completely serious and on the verge of horror.

"Is that a naked lady on your arm?"

Silence.

She turned to her sisters earnestly with a finger pointed at Emmett. "He has a tattoo of a naked lady on his arm!"

That's when the kitchen burst with laughter; Emmett doubled over until his head was lying on the table and his huge body was shaking hysterically. Even Jasper's face had a huge smile on it, laughing at Bella's innocence and the repulsion of the other Swan girls.

"Does your mother know you did that?" Bella asked Emmett in reprimand.

"She's right there!" Emmett pointed at Esme, weak from laughter. "Ask her!"

"Mrs. Cullen," Bella did as he said and turned the opposite way to confront Esme, "do you know that Emmett has a tattoo of a naked lady on his arm?"

"Isn't it distasteful?" Esme curled her lip. "I wish I'd had some say-so in that decision. But it's his body and his arm, so…"

"Why would you do that?" Bella honestly couldn't fathom what she was seeing, and I found it cute how offended she was by Emmett's rude picture. "Why would you tattoo a naked lady on your arm for the world to see?"

"It's art!"

"It's porn," Andrew was quick to correct him. "You have a porno on your arm!"

"Ha!" That was the loudest I'd ever heard Japer laugh…ever. It made Alice clutch her sides laughing, too, happy that he was so happy, and happy that he was so happy because of what Bella had started.

"I don't like this conversation, Kids," Esme warned us, "especially not your side of it, Andrew!"

"Can't I be honest?" Andrew splayed his hands while Cece tried to hide her own laughter behind a pancake. "And, Izzy, you know who the naked lady is, don't you?"

"No," Bella shook her head warily, "and I don't think I want to."

"Yeah, but I have to tell you anyway. It's her," he nodded toward the doorway where Rosalie had just appeared, scowling at us in fierce dislike.

"What?" she barked.

Emmett kept laughing, but Jasper and Alice found a way to control themselves. I had never found this conversation funny, Andrew ducked his head under the weight of Rosalie's disgust, while the Swan girls themselves surprised us all by falling abruptly into complete silence. None of them so much as glanced at Rosalie, and not one of them attempted to change the subject, but sat quietly instead, poking uncomfortably at their food.

"Awkward turtle," Evie whispered, and that was the extent of anything the girls said to us for the rest of the day. They didn't even look us in the eye after that.

As for Bella, she made her phone call to Jeremy which I of course had eavesdropped on. Emmett was right –hearing her bully someone had been the funniest thing I'd ever heard in my life! After that, she spent the day braiding ribbons into Evie's hair, walking aimlessly through town with Cari and Alice, napping lightly with Cece, and being ever haunted by me.

She had no idea.

I watched her all day despite telling myself not to. I studied every inch of her supple lips, her fragile face, her knowing glares at Cece, her encouraging smiles to Cari, but what burned the most was the devotion she gave Andrew. At one point of the day, he went to the couch where she sat and laid his head on her shoulder as easily as if she were a pillow, and she let him, scratching his head lovingly as if he were a favorite cat!

It scalded me to be so jealous, especially of a thirteen year old boy, but I couldn't help myself. I wanted to know Bella like that! I wanted to be able to touch her and be near her, and to see that everyone around me was finding some kind of relationship with her while I had to keep away from her felt like a thousand deaths. So, when I found her that night sleeping –not in the spare room with her sisters, but in Carlisle's den of all places, I had to smile, and, then more dangerously, I had to go closer.

She had Moby Dick clutched to her stomach where she hung over one of the chairs like a forgotten doll, her hair swaying across the velvet in the wind whistling through the window, and her pale legs stretched languidly out over the floor. I was surprised Carlisle had given her permission to be here. Wherever we lived, his study was always his private sanctuary, and we knew that unless we were invited in, the place was off limits.

Yet to Bella he's given free access. I had to smile. She simply had the worst habit of snuggling her way to the very center of everyone's heart, and she didn't even know it!

Cari had painted her nails for her, a dark purple I really liked.

"As if she needs to be any more appealing to me," I thought aloud, the bitter edge of it slicing the air like a knife.

I lightly traced the patterns of her fingers with my own, then, because I was already so near, held her hand softly in my own feeling the warmth and the gentle pumping of blood through the veins of her slender wrists.

"Don't do it," I tried to caution myself, but I bent my face over hers anyway, brushed my nose against hers and breathed.

My throat ripped into flames. Why did she have to smell so good? Why would any human be allowed to smell so good? And what a fragile throat she had, I thought as I traced a finger along its contour. It would be so easy...

She suddenly stirred into a foggy wake, eyes half closed and in half recognition –or so I hoped. I leapt feet away from her until I was standing in the doorway once more, but still she saw me. Her lips curled into a pretty smile, a smile I never should've seen for all the frenzy it sparked in me.

"Edward," she whispered my name, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

_**"To me you're strange and you're beautiful."**_ –Aqualung


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Just an idea bubble I had. Please note the following:**

**Andrew is a thirteen year old boy the Cullens have adopted, but since Carlisle has patented a new method of changing into a vampire, Andrew is still slightly human. His full change won't be complete for a few years yet giving him time to grow (who wants to be thirteen forever?), so he still eats food and bathes and grows like a human.**

**Bella is not an only child. She has three sisters**

**Cari (age 20)**

**Evie (age 17 and Bella's twin sister)**

**Cece (age 13 and Andrew's bff)**

**Also: I DO NOT own Twilight! It is the wonderful creation of none other than Stephenie Meyer herself!**

**~*Please note that constructive feedback is much appreciated*~**

*******************************

Bella

By day three I was exhausted by life with the Cullens. It wasn't that I hated them or anything, it was just hard to keep up with them-especially Alice.

"You know why, right?" Cari speculated this morning while putting her makeup on, smacking her lip gloss and tousling her hair. She was on her way to have brunch with Jeremy who had frantically flown into Seattle on his private jet last night and called Cari's cell a million times, thanks to me. "It's completely obvious what's going on with the Cullens."

"Maybe they spike their coffee?" Evie suggested where she stood getting dressed, but Cece shook her head.

"No," she denied, "they don't keep alcohol in the house."

"And you know that because…?" I challenged her, but she just snickered to herself in that secretive way she did just before admitting some sort of criminal behavior. "I raided the house," she confessed.

"What do you mean?" I asked, frowning and expecting the worst.

"I _raided_," Cece annunciated for me so I could read her lips, "the house. I took a look around the place."

"You spied!"

"Duh. What did you expect me to do after dinner the first night? Don't you see the way that Edward guy looks at you?"

Edward. His name made my heart start hammering against my chest while I felt my face flush at my little sister mentioning him, especially like this.

"Edward's a little…" Cari tilted her head to search for the right words. "He's a little…"

"Disturbed?" Cece offered. "Obsessive? Freakish?"

"He's just weird, Izzy!" Cari decided simply so she could finish her primping. "He's such a psycho! All he ever does is stare at you. He just stares! He never talks to you, and sometimes he's a little rude to you, too, Izzy. I mean, why would he start holding his breath when he sat next to you? Freak."

"I went through his room from top to bottom," Cece announced shamelessly. "Surprisingly, he doesn't have any drugs, alcohol, weapons, or a wall full of pictures of you, but I wouldn't get too comfortable, Izzy. Edward is walking time bomb."

"No, he's not!" I felt a rush of anger from a source I couldn't identify, a need to defend Edward against these lies. Before I knew it, my hands were balled into fists and I was fighting my sisters who I knew I loved over a guy I wasn't even sure if I liked…and it felt right. It felt as if that was the way it was supposed to be; me on Edward's side and everyone else for themselves, even my own family.

"He's too quiet," Cari warned me. "Why doesn't he ever talk? With kids that quiet, you have to wonder if they're not talking to other people then who are they talking to? The voices in their heads."

"The ones that say 'Kill Bella'," Cece piped in with dark humor. "If Edward has a hit list, I bet you're number one, Izzy."

"Says Goth Girl who has no friends and Miss Popularity who had many propositions but no friends!"

"I did too have friends in high school!" Cari yelled at me. "Cecelia's the one with no friends!"

"I have friends!"

"You have Andy," Cari corrected, "and he's falling all over himself in love with you for whatever reason, so that doesn't count."

"Well I think Edward's nice!" I brought them back to the point and was met by stunned silence. "I think he's smart and…smart," I searched for another one of his qualities, but everything I knew about him was creepy(perfect body, changing eyes, rapid mood swings) or obvious (he was adopted, he had three brothers and two sisters, he didn't live in town).

"Just give him a break, okay?" I asked. "I mean, he's adopted, you guys! We don't know where his parents are, what happened to them, or anything he's been through before Doctor and Mrs. Cullen found him. So, ease up and stop trashing him!"

"Doctor Cullen!" Cari remembered with a jolt. "I knew there was something I wanted to say! I think the reason why the Cullens are all so energetic is because Dr. Cullen runs tests on them, maybe gives them treatment with some secret medicine only the Pope and Demi Moore know about."

I was pretty certain that wasn't the answer, but at the same time couldn't deny that there was something unnatural going on with our host family. They were always already awake by the time my sisters and I came down in the morning, they were always the last ones to go to bed at night, and Emmett never seemed to get tired of laughing at me when I tripped over my feet and fell down their steep staircase. It was as if he'd never seen anyone fall before and was over-enjoying it now.

"Ouch!" I hissed as I stumbled on a roller skate and fell to the floor at the bottom of the staircase. High above me I heard Emmett's ghostly chuckle and knew that he had put the skate there on purpose. "Why does he enjoy this so much?" I wondered as I picked myself up and headed for the door. I was seriously getting faint bruises from all the assisted falling I was doing at the Cullen house…as if I needed any extra help _not _keeping my balance.

"Ready for school?"

For a minute I thought I was just imagining it, but when I turned my head there Edward stood leaning against the door frame with a whisper of a smile on his gorgeous face. Actually, he seemed to be in a good mood which was a first for me. I'd never seen him in an all out, undeniably good mood before.

I liked it. I couldn't help the smile tugging free at my mouth in response.

"Yeah, I'm ready," I tried to be casual about his sudden wish for dialogue. "Mondays are always a little rough, though."

"But today should be easy for you two," Alice appeared out of nowhere, startling me despite how hard I'd been practicing getting used to it. She did her little pixie dance/walk into the foyer toward Edward and I with Jasper following far behind…weirdly far behind.

"Your science teacher is taking a personal day and won't be coming in," Alice informed me.

"Yeah?" I asked, excited. "How do you know that?"

Was I supposed to miss the quick glare Edward gave Alice and the playful smile she pretended she wasn't giving? Was there some secret I didn't know about? Oh, well, I let it go easily, too perked up by the idea of my test being postponed and the homework I'd been about to do when Andy had suddenly decided to get sick on me not being due for at least two days!

But then my good mood was shattered when Rosalie came storming into the foyer with Emmett, shooting daggers at me the whole time. I didn't know what was stopping her from spitting on me like she so wanted to–maybe that equal desire she had to strangle the life out of me –but I was grateful for her reservations and hoped they kept her fenced in long enough for Charlie to get better. Nevertheless, I couldn't stop myself from inching closer to Edward and away from her.

"Where's the hu…" Rosalie trailed off whatever she'd been about to say at a fierce look from Alice. "Where's the boy?" she amended. "Is he late again? I say we leave him. I'm tired of having to drop him off at that stupid middle school anyway."

"You don't have to drop Andy off," I offered past how urchin-like I felt bringing attention to myself in front of these perfect Cullens. "I'm taking Cece to school; he can just hop in with me."

"That's really nice of you, Bella," Esme entered with her warm smile already in place, "but Andy isn't going to school today. He's not feeling well."

"Still?" I couldn't help feeling worried. "Is it the fever? Has it gotten worse"

"Well, yes," Esme nodded, "but Carlisle is with him right now, and I'm sure he'll be just fine. Andrew is a very sick boy. That's how we met him, did you know? He has a rare disease few doctors know how to treat."

"But Dr. Cullen knows?" I guessed and she nodded again.

"Andy's parents couldn't pay his medical bills, and then they both died in the…the accident," she seemed to force the word out, almost as if Andy's parents' deaths weren't truly accidents. "We took him in immediately, and every few months Carlisle gives him treatments."

That poor kid! My mind immediately started thinking of all the scenarios; Andy limp and helpless in bed, Andy dizzy and feverish all alone…

"You know I only had one test today and it's cancelled, so if you like I could stay here and look after Andy."

"Oh, Bella!" Esme chuckled at me. "Carlisle would never forgive me if I kept you from your studies! I'll be home all day with Andy; you go. In fact," both hers and Alice's faces lit up at the same time, "Edward will be one short in his car with Andy gone. Why don't you take his place? Ride with Edward."

"I can't," I bailed quickly, lamely. "Evie's coming to school with me. I'm a package deal now."

"There's room for her."

Edward spoke. Edward spoke to me. Edward spoke to me to convince me to ride to school with him! My head spun as I tried to figure out how I wanted to feel about that while Rosalie crossed her arms and gave me a withering stare.

"I'm taking my own car!" she bellowed.

"You always do," Emmett poked fun at her. "You and I ride together. Why would today be different?"

"I'm just saying!" she insisted and didn't bother to pretend her comment wasn't thrown at me. "No one is getting in my car."

"Raise your hand if you were talking to Rosalie."

It was a joke, I swear. It was just something my sisters and I would say to each other when one of us butted into a conversation we hadn't been invited to join. Saying it always gave us a good chuckle.

It was a joke, I swear. I didn't even say it –I mumbled it! I whispered it so low that no one could've possible heard me, yet all of the Cullen kids –even Jasper, and even Edward himself!–began to roar with laughter…slapping their knees and everything!

"Good one, Bella!" Emmett congratulated me. "Good one!"

"Oh really?" Rosalie turned on him in pure, unadulterated anger. "Drive yourself to school, then!"

"Rose don't be like that!" he tried to reason with her, but she was already to the door.

"And you?" she stopped to point her finger directly in my face, so hideous with hatred I forgot she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. "You think you can cross me and get away with it? Your days are _numbered_!"

"Rosalie!" Esme gasped.

Alice's face twisted into a frightening grimace.

I could feel the air around Emmett pulsing with pent-up energy.

Most shockingly of all, Edward was standing in front of me now, a wall shielding me from Rosalie who amazingly enough saw something in his face that I couldn't see and quickly if bitterly stepped down from her attack on me.

I hadn't known one measly insult from a ticked off blonde needed this much of a response! I was willing to ignore Rosalie as best I could like I'd been doing since she came on the scene yesterday, but apparently none of the Cullens shared my blind eye.

"Apologize," Esme was sizzling with anger toward Rosalie, anger I hadn't thought Edward's sweet mother capable of. "Rosalie! Apologize this instant!"

"No!" Rosalie screeched. "I won't! Why should I apologize to her when all of you should be apologizing to me? This is my house, too!"

She spun on her heel and left. Seconds later a car rumbled to life and then tires were tearing down the road, but everyone in the foyer stood where they were eyeing each other and then eyeing me, secretly checking Edward's face and then turning to Esme.

"You'll have to excuse Rosalie, Bella," Esme told me ruefully. "She's spoiled."

"I'm sure she has a reason why she feels this way," I tried to rational even though I had no idea what that reason would be. "Maybe I mess up the feng shui and she's the only one who notices?"

"You were asked to excuse her, Bella," Edward turned to me, sank those liquid gold irises into mine, "not to forgive her."

I really loved staring at Edward, especially when he was talking to me. He had a good face, and I don't mean the attractive features. I'm talking about the goodness of his face; the sweetness around his mouth, the care in his eyes, the concern on his brow, the hidden secrets buried in the clefts of his cheeks.

He had such a good face.

"Cecelia, wait!"

I heard the plea seconds before Cece came tearing down the stairs and out the door, hair flying and feet pounding in a desperate staccato I felt in my stomach couldn't be good.

"Cecelia!" I tried to stop her but her arm slid right out of my grasp. "What's wrong with her?" I asked Cari as she materialized in the foyer with her keys in her hands.

"Cece's not going to school today, okay?"

"What do you mean she's not going to school?" I demanded. "Cari, what's going?"

"I'm taking Cece with me to Seattle to meet up with Jeremy."

"Why? What happened?"

"I'll talk to you later, I swear!" Cari promised me as she took off running after Cece, leaving me to stare wonderingly after them both. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

"Izzy, we should go."

"What happened to Cecelia?" I whirled on Evie, but she shrugged, uncomfortable.

"Cece thinks she saw something that she didn't really see."

"What?" I asked, pulling out answer. "What does she think she saw?"

"Well," Evie glanced shyly at the host family around us before telling me in her quietest voice, "Cece went to say bye to Andy, but when she opened the door she said…she said she saw Mr. Cullen in there."

"He gives Andy treatments," I affirmed the obvious. "The man's a doctor. Next?"

"About those treatments," Evie continued, "Cece said she saw Mr. Cullen…she saw him…she saw that he was…pouring blood down Andy's throat."

"What?" I shrieked.

The Cullens went stonily still, probably too shocked by the accusation to do anything else, poor guys, and now they'd always remember us as the crazy Swan girls who had actually thought they'd seen a professionally trained doctor pouring blood down a patient's throat.

"That's impossible," I tried to clean up the mess my sisters had made. "Mr. Cullen is a doctor, Evie! He wouldn't do something like that because he knows that blood can't be in a stomach; it has to be carried by veins. He knows that!"

"You think Cecelia is lying?"

"It wouldn't be the first time!"

"Well," she looked guilty, "then call me a liar like her because I saw it too. Doctor Cullen fed Andrew blood."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Just an idea bubble I had. Please note the following:**

**Andrew is a thirteen year old boy the Cullens have adopted, but since Carlisle has patented a new method of changing into a vampire, Andrew is still slightly human. His full change won't be complete for a few years yet giving him time to grow (who wants to be thirteen forever?), so he still eats food and bathes and grows like a human.**

**Bella is not an only child. She has three sisters**

**Cari (age 20)**

**Evie (age 17 and Bella's twin sister)**

**Cece (age 13 and Andrew's bff)**

**Also: I DO NOT own Twilight! It is the wonderful creation of none other than Stephenie Meyer herself!**

**~*Please note that constructive feedback is much appreciated*~**

*******************************

Edward

I'd known from the start that having the Swan girls in my house was a mistake; if only someone had listened to me.

"Did you see this coming?" Jasper asked Alice as we sat in the school cafeteria, silent and not even pretending to eat today.

She shook her head grimly. "Cecelia had thrown out the idea to check on Andrew hours before. By the time I got the vision she had already been walking into his room."

"Some good you are."

"Shut _up_, Rosalie!" Alice's voice was almost more plea than growl. "Don't you ever have anything better to do than put other people down?"

"I just want everyone to admit that I was right!" Rosalie fussed. "I was right from the beginning! The Swan girls never had any business coming in our house. Edward liking one is his own problem, and I don't see why Esme felt obligated to make it ours as well."

"Because he's our family, Rose!" Emmett stated the obvious. "That's why Esme tried this! Edward is our family."

"Edward say something," Alice urged me, followed my gaze when I didn't answer across the room where Bella's humans sat. That Mike Newton had his arm casually around Jessica's shoulders, but she seemed to think it meant something more. The other nameless faces around them were laughing at something that probably wasn't even funny. They all went on my blacklist, though, because none of them seemed the least concerned that both Bella and Evie were missing from the table, their seats left starkly empty.

"They left early," Alice told me quietly. "They went to visit Charlie and talk to Cece, but I can't see what will happen next. Bella has been getting really blurry to me lately. What do you think that means?"

"How should I know, Alice?" I spewed bitterness unmeant for her, and allowed the silence that cocooned around us to smother me the rest of the day.

Bella

"Cecelia, where have you been? We've called your cell a million times! Why did you leave Cari?"

"She made up with Jeremy," Cece waved my concern away as she met up with Evie and I in the hospital hallway. "And knowing our Silicone Sister, needless to say things got really uncomfortable to watch…and listen to. So, how's Charlie?"

"Better," I answered past her disturbing news. "He's still in quarantine, but he feels a lot better. So, how are you?"

"Fine," she answered too quickly, too apathetically even for her. "Let's go see Charlie."

"Cecelia," Evie spoke up, "we're worried about you."

"Because you don't believe me."

A heartbeat of silence.

"I believe you," Evie encouraged.

"I don't," I shook my head. "It makes absolutely no sense, but that's not what I want to talk about. I just want to make sure you're okay. Are you okay, Cece?"

"I'm fine," she ground out, boring holes in my face, "and just so you know, I'm not lying. I know what I saw, and if you don't believe me go ask Andy yourself!"

"Whoa! You've talked to Andy?"

"That's where I've been" she nodded. "I went back to see him. He's feeling better, in case you were wondering; loads better."

"Cece, what are you trying to say?" Evie asked, mirroring what was in my mind. "Do you know something we don't?"

"No!" Cece wailed, smacking her hands to her face and then digging her nails into her scalp. "I wish he'd never told me. Why did he have to tell me?"

"Who? Andy?"

"What did he say?" my heart was hammering against my ribs, terrified. "Cece, what did Andy tell you?"

"He's a vampire."

Evie and I checked her face for the joke and found no amusement, checked each other for clarification but found none.

"Andrew Cullen is a vampire," Cece said it again, her voice cracking on the last word. "All of the Cullens are vampires, and that is why Carlisle was feeding him blood, to keep Andy transitioning. That illness Esme was talking about? It turns out Andy's illness is death. He's been dead for years! Feeding on the blood has been slowly turning him into one of them. About two or three years from now, he'll be a full-blown vampire."

It felt like I was in one those nightmares you hope with all your might isn't true. This all sounded so unrealistically sick, so dark and twisted that it could only exist between the covers of a book…yet there was my baby sister standing right in front of me shaking and shivering as if it was true.

"I don't care if you don't believe me," she said, "but I know what I saw and I know what Andy himself told me. There's no way I'm ever stepping another foot into the Cullen house again."

Edward

Andy felt better eventually as he always did after his treatments, and decided to take a walk with Esme since they were both feeling so equally upset and guilty from the morning's events. Carlisle went to the hospital to check on Chief Swan where we all assumed the Swan girls would be, but somehow in each of our separate activities, the girls went mysteriously missing…along with all of their bags and the left-over pizza.

I'd thought myself beyond any further disappointment, but seeing that empty guest room and waiting for the laughter that never came, the arguing and teasing I hadn't realized I'd grown so used to, brought me even lower than I'd been before.

Bella was gone and she was gone because of me, because of what I was.

"Is she safe at least?" I asked Alice who had come behind me now, staring over my shoulder at the empty room with me.

"I think so," she comforted softly, hand on my arm. "I really do. I'm sorry for butting into your business the way I did. Everything is worse than it was before because of all of us. We should've left you and Bella alone like you asked."

"Forget it, Alice," I tried to assure her though the tense muscles of my jaw said differently, I knew. "I could've never kept Bella anyway. It would've been wrong."

And yet so frightening right.

Images of her around the house played a slideshow through my mind; Bella sleeping in Carlisle's study, Bella laughing with Alice in the kitchen, Bella napping with Evie and Cece on the couch, being teased by Emmett and Jasper, sneaking hugs with Esme…

She had tainted each and every part of my life. There was no way I could go back to the way things had been before she'd been here, a part of my world. I knew then, staring at the empty room, that wherever Bella was and no matter how many years passed us, I would never shake her, never be rid of her, never get over all she could've meant to me.

"And I don't want to," I found myself saying aloud.

I never wanted to forget anyone so strange and beautiful.

** One Week Later…**

"Cullens! Hi there! This is Chief Swan just calling to thank you for taking such good care of my girls while I was, well, quarantined. I just got out and I have about a million messages from the girls about how much they enjoyed you all. Evelyn said, and I quote, Alice and Esme's cooking was unfairly delicious; I've gained six pounds. Carilyna wants to thank Dr. and Mrs. Cullen for being so nice. I guess there was some teasing going on and she felt like you were on her side, or something. Carilyna's big on that, feeling understood.

"Isabella wants to thank everyone for a good time, especially Andrew. 'I love you, Kid' she said and I quote. 'Stay healthy and eat your Wheaties'. She also asked me to pass along a particular goodbye to Edward. I have no idea what that's about, but thank God I won't have to deal with it. Cecelia didn't leave a message, which is strange. That girl usually has at least one smart comment to make, but not this time. Silent as the grave. Weird.

"Anyway, thanks again for taking such good care of my girls, and don't worry –I'm not angry in the slightest that you let them go back to Phoenix. When I heard that Carilyna and Jeremy decided to get married and move out there, I understood exactly why you did it. Isabella even told me you helped them get their train tickets and saw them onto the platform. It's hard to trust people with your kids, but you've all proved to me that my girls are always welcome and safe with you. Thanks so much. Bye."

The one and only message on the Cullen answering machine ended with a piercing beep. They sat in the living room mulling it over quietly, how unexpected that had been and wondering how they were supposed to react to Chief Swan's gratitude when they knew it was undeserved.

"They covered for us," Rosalie said, stunned. "They told Chief Swan we bought them train tickets to Phoenix when we didn't."

"They didn't sell us out," Emmett scratched his head. "I thought for sure they would after Andrew let the cat out of the bag."

"Hey!" Andrew defended himself.

"Well, you did," Rosalie agreed. "You almost started a war there for a second, half of us wanting to get rid of the girls and half of us wanting to leave them alone. You are so lucky none of them squealed."

"Bella wouldn't do that," Alice smiled to herself. "She's always been on our side, even when her own sisters were against us. It's too bad. I wish we could've had more time."

"Me, too," Esme nodded against Carlisle's comforting shoulder. "Just when she and Edward had started talking to each other, the worst had to happen and it all fell apart. It's not fair!"

"No, it isn't," Carlisle agreed. "Edward is the best of us in many ways. It seems so unfair that he should be so alone especially when the girl for him is out there."

"In Phoenix," Alice added. "If he wanted to, he could go see her and yet he's still alone. What's sadder than that?"

"So," Jasper spoke up for the first time, "Edward's still out on his run. When he comes back, are we telling him about this message or staying out of it?"

"Telling him, of course!" Alice frowned. "Bella mentioned him to Chief Swan by name! He should know that. Besides, he's been in such a mood since the girls left, and this is sure to give him a boost."

"No, I don't think so, Alice," Carlisle gently intervened. "Remember, no matter what happens or what is said, Edward has already told himself that he can never have Isabella. At this point, it's only fair that we leave him be to move on as best he can, and bringing up the loss especially so soon isn't going to help."

"So, what now?" Esme asked, even though as she watched her husband rise and cross over to the answering machine, she already knew what would be done.

Carlisle pressed the shiny green button they'd never had use for until then, and listened as the automated voice confirmed his decision.

"You have no new messages. Message Inbox is empty."

"**I know the waiting is all you can do sometimes." -Aqualung **


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Just an idea bubble I had. Please note the following:**

**Andrew is a thirteen year old boy the Cullens have adopted, but since Carlisle has patented a new method of changing into a vampire, Andrew is still slightly human. His full change won't be complete for a few years yet giving him time to grow (who wants to be thirteen forever?), so he still eats food and bathes and grows like a human.**

**Bella is not an only child. She has three sisters**

**Cari (age 20)**

**Evie (age 17 and Bella's twin sister)**

**Cece (age 13 and Andrew's bff)**

**Also: I DO NOT own Twilight! It is the wonderful creation of none other than Stephenie Meyer herself!**

*******************************

Bella

"You're too young to get married, Carilyna! You just got your Associate's degree, didn't even complete the full four years of college-- you just turned twenty, for God's sake! Last year you were a teenager, do you realize that?"

"Mom, stop it! Jeremy and I are in love, and we are getting married. Face it. This is going to be the happiest day of my life, and if you can't share the happiness then don't come!"

"Don't you dare talk to me like that!"

"I'm a grown woman! You can't tell me what to do anymore!"

I listened to the argument from my room just as I had done yesterday, and the day before that, and every day since we'd been back and Cari had dropped the wedding bomb on Renee.

Renee wasn't taking it very well. No matter how many promises Jeremy made to send Cari to whatever classes she wanted to take, no matter how many times Cari begged our mother to be happy for her, and no matter how scarce the rest of us made ourselves around the house, Renee wasn't taking it very well. At one point she'd even called Charlie and asked him to talk some sense into _his_ daughter, as if anything could make my stubborn sister change her mind ever.

"How will you support yourself?" Renee was at it again, pointing out every pitfall she could find in Cari's storybook dream. "You've never worked a day in your life! Do you honestly expect Jeremy to support your shopaholic lifestyle on his paycheck alone?"

"Um, yeah!" Cari snorted obviously. "The guy is a solar engineer! I can shop as much as I want. Besides, Jeremy doesn't want me working anyway. He's going to take care of me, Mom," I heard her voice soften for the first time. "He's a great guy. You could see that if you would just get on board with the wedding. I mean, in a few short months I'm going to be Mrs. Jeremy Vanderbilt! Isn't that exciting? Vanderbilt," she kept trying the name out for size. "I love it! It makes me sound important, don't you think? Carilyna Vanderbilt."

"And that's another thing!" Renee started up again with a second wind. "Why is this wedding so soon? Engagements last a year at least, yet you two are getting married in two months! Carilyna," the warning tone we'd all come to fear crept into Renee's tone, "is there something I should know?"

"Oh, so now you think this is a shotgun wedding? Thanks a lot, Mom! You're just like everybody else thinking the only reason Jeremy would marry anybody like me is because I put out! Thanks a lot!"

I heard Cari's footsteps pounding against the stairs as she ran to her room seeking sanctuary from the big, bad world as she had done countless times before when we were younger. Life was always so unfair to her those days; girls who wore the same bikinis to the same parties as her, guys she couldn't date because Renee didn't approve, guys who refused to come within a block of our house anymore because they were scared of Renee who didn't approve…

"She's crying," Renee announced sadly as she came in to join me, flopping down on my bed in exhaustion despite her youthful tan. "I hate it when Cari cries."

"She always stops," I tried to comfort, "eventually."

"Eventually," Renee nodded ruefully and rubbed her eyes. "This whole thing is messed up! You guys were supposed to stay with Charlie for just a few months while I traveled with Phil. It was Forks, for God's sake! Nothing like this was supposed to happen!"

"Nothing like what?" I frowned.

"Oh, Bella, don't give me that!" she scolded. "I'm not blind, you know. Cari comes back engaged to a guy I've only met once and that was just because I went to the junior college to check on her and found them together studying a lot more than philosophy."

I shivered in repulsion, but she didn't notice. No one seemed to notice, actually, how very little I needed or wanted to know about my sister's love life. But this new visual of Renee watching them together pushed me right over the edge.

"Evie is suddenly addicted to myths and legends about ghosts and zombies and the undead, whatever that's about. It's weird, isn't it? She's always been terrified of paranormal things like that. Cecelia won't say two words to anyone and treats her phone like her invisible stepchild. I found that thing under the couch the other day; thirty-two missed messages! Can you believe that? Who in the world would call her thirty-two times?"

I had a pretty good idea who that must've been, but I didn't tell my mother. I just couldn't. To come clean about that meant to come clean about what really happened to us in Forks and all the strange stories we'd all silently but mutually agreed to pretend hadn't happened.

"And you're the worst, Bells."

"Me?" I could've choked. "I'm the least obnoxious person in this house!"

"Exactly," Renee nodded. "You sit in your windows and daydream about him."

"Him?"

"The boy you're obviously in love with! Come on. What's his name?"

Oh God.

I felt the heat rush to my cheeks and turned away from my mother's scrutinizing eyes, hoping maybe my silence would force her to change the subject. It didn't.

"Obviously you met him in Forks, right?" she continued to decipher. "Is he in a band? Does he play drums? I could completely see you with a guy who plays drums."

"So," I deflected, "you're okay with me dating the drummer of some band, but you're not okay with Cari getting married to a rich solar engineer? That's really twisted, Mom."

"You think I'm being unfair," she accused me, sort of shocked that I wasn't on her side for once. "Bells, you can't honestly think your sister is ready for marriage. Marriage is no picnic! Once the expensive dress comes off and the carriage turns back into a pumpkin, Cari is going to realize that, and she'll be clawing to get out of it. You know I'm right! As a concerned mother, I have to warn her, don't I? I've been where she is, young and in love and thinking everything is going to be just as I'd dreamed it. Then I had four children and realized my life wasn't going anywhere. I can't let Carilyna end up like me."

"Look, Mom. All I know is that Cari is going to marry Jeremy in two months regardless of anything any of us says or thinks, and it would be a shame if we had to look back and everyone's in the pictures but us."

"Yeah," she sighed gustily, still very unhappy. "I guess you're right. So, now will you tell me who your mystery man is?"

"No," I blushed.

"Ah!" she cornered me. "So you admit that there _is_ a mystery man! Oh, my goodness! How did you sneak him past Charlie?"

"I didn't. I mean, I couldn't. I mean," I took a deep breath at Renee's lost expression and steeled myself to blurt out the truth. "He doesn't like me…at all."

"What? Oh, honey, I'm sure that's not true! Ever since you were little people have adored you because you're just so sweet. Give this guy another chance; he'll come around."

"Well, it's too late now. I'm back in Phoenix, and I'll probably stay now that Cari and Jeremy are moving out here. So, I guess I really won't be seeing Edward again."

"So that's his name?" Renee pounced on every bit of information I leaked. "Edward, huh? That's such a serious name; I would've never picked it. You should call him Eddie, lighten him up a bit."

"I'm not calling him anything, Mom. I'm never going to see him again."

"Are you sure?"

"What do you mean?" my eyes narrowed at the secretive expression on her face, the one that meant she was hiding something not entirely good.

"Nothing," she shrugged. "It's just that ever since you came back there have been phone calls from a number I've never seen before. I pick up, but no one ever answers, and whoever it is always hangs up. Plus, Phil has been telling me he keeps seeing this strange guy around hanging out wherever we are. He saw this guy when we went out to eat that first night, when we went to the movies, and, yesterday, he even saw him across the street standing beside a Volvo. Is that weird, or what?"

"Yeah, weird" I gasped past my hysteria, my mounting fearful realization that Edward Cullen had been –and could very well still be –in Phoenix. Edward Cullen was stalking me.

"Is there any chance that Eddie would come looking for you, do you think?"

"No," I shook my head as quickly as I could, lying through my teeth so I wouldn't have to face any of this, at least not yet while I was still focused on my sister. "I mean, I don't think so. Like I said, he doesn't like me very much."

"If you say so," Renee let it go and kissed my forehead on her way out, probably headed for Cari's room to make up for the past few days of belligerence. "And Bella?" she halted just inside the doorway. "Why don't you go out and snag some sun for a little bit, okay? You're as pale as vampire! My God!"

I shuddered at her analogy, but she didn't notice. And why would she? She had no idea what my sisters and I had been through I Forks, what we were struggling to come to terms with now. She had no way of knowing the terrible potential her words brought to me.

"And take Cece with you, please," she wrapped up. "I'm desperate to get that girl out of her room. I swear, I have no idea what's wrong with her! She acts like her best friend just died or something."

************************************************************

Outside it was a sweltering 95 degrees, sticky and humid and hot. I wasn't complaining, not after the soggy mess that was Forks, but I wasn't about to refuse the ice cream man doling out cones by the park either. Neither was anyone else, if the long line was any indication. It took forever to get to the window, and midway through Cecelia had gotten so irritated she'd stalked off to the park without me where she could be angry at the world without my probing questions of why she wouldn't return Andy's calls, why she wouldn't talk to Mom, why, why, why.

"Why, why, why?" I mourned when, after all I'd been through, the single scoop of Oreo ice cream fell off of my cone not even ten steps away from the truck window. Why me?

"Take this one," someone offered, a hand suddenly under my nose offering a new cone of three scoops of Oreo ice cream. "You might enjoy it better on the cone instead of on cement."

"Edward," I breathed, staring up at his beautiful face in shock. It seemed that even though I wasn't ready to face him, he was more than ready to face me despite the careful hesitance peeping through his eyes. The confident smile he pulled on almost perfectly masked it. "What are you doing here?"

"One of Alice's paintings won a slot in the Callahan Art Studio a few blocks from here. Have you heard of it?"

"Um, yeah," I blinked in surprise. "Alice paints? I didn't know that. And she's good, obviously."

"Well, she's had years and years of experience," he allowed with an amused smile, a secret joke he enjoyed by himself.

God, he was beautiful. He wore a simple dark gray t-shirt and a pair of black jeans, yet his presence had the hairs of my arms standing at attention, had goose bumps running up and down my back. And was I imagining it or did he shimmer a little bit? It was probably just this funny sunlight, I mused. It was weird that despite the dense heat there was only a little sunshine, a few rays bursting from the clouds to explain the oppressive weather.

"Are you alright?"

"Fine!" I blurted out when I realized I'd been staring. "Sorry, I just…I need to go."

"Are you coming back to Forks?"

That stopped me in my tracks. Edward Cullen was actually interested in what I did with my life? Edward Cullen wanted me to come back to Forks?

"I don't know," I answered without turning back around to see him. One look at him and I might agree to anything, but I had to be honest now. I had to keep my thoughts clear. "I'm not sure what I'm doing. My sister needs me; she's getting married."

"Ah, so your guilt trip on Jeremy worked, did it?"

He was teasing me, and I chuckled with him, surprised he remembered.

"My guilt trips always work, Edward. Don't find that out the hard way. Edward?" my poor heart thrashed around in my chest, constricting and writhing and stuttering on me as he stepped closer, so close I could smell his breath where it whispered against my cheek, just beyond my right ear. Why was it so intense to be around him? Never in my life had one person sparked a frenzy in me the way Edward Cullen did.

"What is it?" he asked me, some fragrant smell wafting off of him and filling my head. "Bella? Were you going to ask me something?"

"Why are you here?" I whispered.

"Alice's painting won an exhibition slot at the Callahan Art Studio," he repeated as if talking to a small child. "My parents didn't want her here alone so I came with her."

"No, Edward," I shook my head, fighting to keep my attention on what I wanted to say. _"Why are you here?"_

He noted the difference in the two questions and stood incredibly still –statuesque, in fact. Over his face a series of conflicted emotions played out until he finally cleared his throat and gave me as honest an answer as I supposed he could.

"Because you're here."

I did turn then, spun around to see if it was real or if he was joking, if he was playing with me or if…

But he was gone.

There was no one there but me and a trash bin, a squirrel and a lonely tree beyond which the park expanded and children were playing.

He was gone.

"I'm ready to leave," Cece came up behind me, arms crossed and gaze bored. "Let's get out of here."

"Did you see anybody here?"

"What?" she frowned at me. "No. Who would I see?"

"A guy," I bit my lip and then had to go ahead and admit it, "Edward Cullen."

"Edward Cullen? Are you serious? Why would Edward Cullen be here in Phoenix?"

"I don't know, but I swear he was, only now he's…gone. He disappeared."

"Well, that's weird! He could've at least offered you a magic carpet ride."

"He was here! I know what I saw!"

"And I don't believe you! Funny how the roles reverse, isn't it?"

Funny indeed. It wasn't too long ago that Cece had been the one seeing something unexplainable and I had been the one in disbelief. Now that the situation was reversed, I knew how frustrating it was being so sure of something you couldn't prove.

But I wasn't crazy.

Edward had been in that park with me, had spoken to me. I wasn't crazy.

"If Edward Cullen really was here," Cece allowed, "then you need to run away from him because he's only after one thing."

"The Cullens aren't vampires."

"I know what I saw."

"_**It was your hello that had me hanging on every word**_

_**And your goodbye**_

_**That had me listening for your voice around each corner." -Copeland**_


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Just an idea bubble I had. Please note the following:**

**Andrew is a thirteen year old boy the Cullens have adopted, but since Carlisle has patented a new method of changing into a vampire, Andrew is still slightly human. His full change won't be complete for a few years yet giving him time to grow (who wants to be thirteen forever?), so he still eats food and bathes and grows like a human.**

**Bella is not an only child. She has three sisters**

**Cari (age 20)**

**Evie (age 17 and Bella's twin sister)**

**Cece (age 13 and Andrew's bff)**

**Also: I DO NOT own Twilight! It is the wonderful creation of none other than Stephenie Meyer herself!**

*******************************

Edward

"You really weren't supposed to tell me about the voice mail?" I asked Alice for the tenth time as we drove down the back roads of Forks, headed home from our stint in Phoenix. I hated to be repetitive, but I was still having trouble grappling with the thought of Carlisle ever keeping something this important from me. Of course, I understood why he did it, but the boiling fury his secret sparked in the core of my chest beat out all rationale, called on other instincts I hadn't realized I possessed since they'd been lying dormant for so long.

"We've never kept secrets from each other," I mourned the altered relationship with the man who was, for all intents and purposes, my father. "We've always been open with each other, ever since the day he adopted me."

"Don't dwell, Eddie," Alice tried to soothe me as my car rounded a corner, but I curled my lip at the use of the nickname instead.

"Don't call me that."

"Why not?" she whined. "I liked it since the minute Bella's mom said it. We _should_ lighten you up a bit; you think too much. Why are you so hung up on Carlisle when you should be excited about Bella?"

"What do you mean?"

"Edward, you are completely blind!" Alice wailed in exasperation, hands splayed before her like an animated little puppet. "Bella is falling in love with you, you Dope! Can't you see? You make her blush, she forgets her words…did you see her face when you told her you were in Phoenix because of her? Aw, it was so adorable! But why did you have to run off like that? You missed the perfect chance to kiss her, just so you know."

"Kiss her?" I felt my eyes bugging out of my head, and had to let go of the steering wheel before my horrified hands bent it uselessly. "Alice, no! I can never touch Bella! What if I do something wrong and hurt her? What if…? Carlisle was right to try to keep the voice mail from me," I sighed, crashing down from the euphoria seeing Bella had given me, back to the reality of my struggles and the consequences of my hasty actions.

"Look at me, Alice. I ran away and risked sunlight in Phoenix for a human I could just as easily kill as I could..."

_Love her._

She spoke into my mind the word I wouldn't say.

_You could love her, Edward, and she would love you right back._

"They're home!" Emmett's guffaw met us just as we pulled into the drive of our house.

_Great,_ I could hear Rosalie mumbling already. _I was actually enjoying myself!_

"Don't mind her," Alice encouraged while we walked. "I'm sure once Bella becomes family Rosalie will start warming up to her. Hello, everyone!" she stepped into the house grandly and graced the family with a smile. "Miss us?"

"Where have you two been?" Esme demanded, in no mood for pleasantries. "I've been worried sick! You couldn't leave a note? A message? And why didn't either of you call?"

"Sorry, Mom," I quickly took the blame since the blame was mine to take –not that Alice minded at all. She lowered herself onto the couch next to Jasper as casually as if we'd never been gone a day. "You're right. I should've told you and Carlisle that I was leaving, or at least given you both a call once I arrived."

"Where were you, Edward?" Carlisle face was twisted with concern where he stood beside Esme, stroking her back to calm her down. "It isn't like you to suddenly take off without warning. You told me you were coming here."

"I did come here, but I couldn't stay here," I tried to explain the hurricane my life had become ever since that first and terrible day I'd met Bella, but my family only frowned at me, as lost as I obviously was. "Since the Swan girls left I've been…floundering," I confessed. "I've missed them being around."

"You've missed the girl," Rosalie accused me.

"For real?" Emmett prepared to laugh at me.

"Is this true, Edward?" Esme's anger finally fell away. "Have you missed Bella?"

"Wait a minute," Carlisle put it together, "is that where you've been this past week?"

"You went to see Bella? Oh, Edward!" Esme's joy was radiant, barely containable where it infected almost everyone else. "Oh, Edward! That's wonderful! I'm so glad! What did you say to her? What did she say when she saw you?"

"He probably didn't even talk to her," Rosalie snorted. "He probably just stared at her through her window."

"Actually," Alice sniped, "Edward and Bella had quite the interlude."

"And Alice," Carlisle suddenly remembered a thought, "what were you doing with Edward?"

"Of all the people to take with you, you took Alice?" Emmett sulked. "You should've taken me! I could've given you loads of advice on how to talk to the girl. Girls love me."

"I'm standing right here, you moron!" Rosalie exclaimed.

"What's your problem? It's not like you don't know girls love me, and it's not like you don't flirt with guys every chance you get to make me jealous, is it?"

"I don't flirt with every guy, just the worthy ones to make sure you don't get too used to the way things are around here. They have to be fair competition for you, after all."

"What competition?" Emmett sneered, flexing his muscles. "Who could match this? And besides, Baby, there's no one else on earth crazy enough to put up with your crap but me."

"That's not true! I have lots of takers! I could be with anyone I want!"

"No, Rose, you can't. You're crazy and you scare people."

"Moving on!" Alice interrupted the mini tirade. "As I was saying, Edward and Bella completely connected in Phoenix, and now Bella's coming back to Forks."

"No, she never said she would," I corrected the fairy tale Alice wanted so badly. "I asked"-

"You_ asked_?!" Esme gushed, clapping her hands. "Oh, Edward!"

"She's coming, Edward," Alice negated. "She's already decided. I'm so excited!"

It was a Wednesday when Bella came into my life again as suddenly as when she'd stepped out. I walked into science and there she sat, strange in her silence and magnetic with her beauty –and, let's be honest, my thirst. The human children were crowded around her with all their pesky questions as to where she'd been and why she'd left so soon and why she was back now. Where were her sisters? They wanted to know. Why hadn't they come back with her?

She responded to their claustrophobia with the grace of royalty, replying that Carilyna was getting married, and that Evelyn would be back in Forks fairly soon as well. She said nothing of Cecelia, though, the Swan girl who was breaking Andrew's heart as totally as Bella was stealing mine. I knew then in that moment that no matter how Evelyn might pretend otherwise, Carilyna might not care regardless, or how Bella might choose not to believe, Cecelia was no fool. Cecelia believed every word Andrew had spoken to her about who and what we Cullens were.

"How ironic," I mused to myself. The most cynical of the sisters turned out to be the one with the most sense.

"Excuse me," the humans parted as if I'd whipped them instead of politely pardoned myself on my way to the seat beside Bella.

_He is so hot!_ The Jessica girl who seemed incapable of leaving Bella alone was raving in her mind. _What in the world does he see in Bella? She's not even that pretty, and I know for a fact that my boobs are bigger than hers, yet she's the one he has sleepovers with? Life sucks!_

"Hello," I greeted Bella just to make Jessica even more jealous than she already was, if that were possible. How dare she not only put Bella down like that, but then go so far as to think she was better than her by any stretch of the imagination! "I'm glad you're back."

"Me too," Bella smiled at me and the stone around my heart crumbled. She was so beautiful; Jessica was blind not to see it.

"You have sunlight in your eyes," I told her stupidly as if she didn't already know about the frail beams barely managing to break the clouds, but I saw them clearly enough, and then, since I was already breaking my self-made rules by engaging with her, reached out and grabbed the lock of her hair she usually twisted while she read, the same lock that always managed to curl maddeningly around her neck when she thought she's managed to get all of her hair into a bun. "You have red tints in this light."

"Um, yeah," she nodded a little breathlessly, forcing Alice's words to replay in my mind.

"_**Edward, you are completely blind! Bella is falling in love with you, you Dope! Can't you see? You make her blush, she forgets her words…did you see her face when you told her you were in Phoenix because of her? Aw, it was so adorable!"**_

_You've got to be kidding me!_ Jessica fumed now, but when she spoke her voice and face didn't leak even a hint of the venom she felt, lying to Bella.

"Well, I should get going, Bells," she excused herself, flashed a quick look at me. "We'll talk later."

"Okay," Bella answered hesitantly, a light scowl on her face that I couldn't decipher.

"What is it?" I couldn't help asking. Maybe she wasn't as unaware of Jessica's malice as I thought.

"Oh, nothing," she waved away. "It's just that she called me 'Bells'. Only my family calls me that."

"Tell her to call you 'Izzy' like Andrew does."

"Ew! No!" she laughed at me. "That would be horrible! No one can call me 'Izzy' unless they've known me since I was a kid, and the only reason Andrew gets away with it is because he might as well be family by now, you know? I love that kid."

I choked down the jealous bile.

"He's missed you."

"He's missed Cece," she corrected me with a rueful smile. "Poor kid. It's a shame what happened, that we had to leave like that. I just want you to know I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" I echoed. I sucked blood –thirsted for her _right now_ –yet she was apologizing? "For what?"

"You and your family have been so good to us, and we sort of threw it back in your faces. You didn't deserve that, and I'm really sorry. I think maybe us staying with you might've been a mistake."

Oh, really?

"Yeah, it probably was," I decided to agree with her, "but I'd make that mistake again…if I needed to."

Her cheeks flushed. Delicious.

"Alright, class!" our teacher strolled in with the ringing bell and ended our conversation. "Let's talk about mitosis!"

Bella put space between us as if to put a period at the end of a sentence, and there it was again, that sensuous little curl cradling the back of her neck tenderly.

I couldn't help myself. I reached out to touch it again, and when she didn't complain, kept my fingers curled there for the rest of the period.

************************************************

"Secret lovers! That's what you are! You try so hard to hide the way you feel!" Alice, Emmett, and even Jasper serenaded me as soon as I reached our car, obviously clued in on Alice's vision of Bella and I talking.

"You're funny," I was sarcastic, yet the bubbling happiness I felt forced me to smile back at them instead of being truly annoyed. As bad as I'd been, I felt so good to have spoken to Bella and sat beside her, to have touched her and her not pull away as I'd always been sure she would. "Get in the car and let's go."

"You're making a huge mistake," Rosalie hissed at me instead of following directions like everyone else. "Don't you understand that you are risking the safety of this family by talking to this girl?"

"All he did was talk, Rose," Emmett reminded her. "Aren't we allowed to talk to people?"

"That's not the point and you know it!"

"I'm not having this discussion here, Rosalie," I told her. "If you really need to get things off your chest, we'll talk when we get home."

"Don't treat me like a child!"

"Oh, my God!" Alice's voice was barely a whisper, but the horror in her plea resonated in all of us.

"Alice!" Jasper caught her just as her knees nearly gave out and hoisted her into the car before we could make a scene. "What is it? Did you have a vision or something?"

"Al, what did you see?" Emmett stooped to stare at her in concern, and then whipped around to stare at me when I began a hiss any human would fear.

"No!" my voice broke on the word, ragged on my distress. "Alice, no!"

"What's going on?" Japer demanded.

"They're having a mind conversation. I hate it when they have mind conversations!"

I didn't mind Emmett; I couldn't, not with Alice's vision beating against me, and then manifesting into reality right before my eyes.

A human boy was driving in the school parking lot, and too quickly for any of the children to notice, he began skidding across the ice, headed straight for Bella.

"Well, that problem is solved," Rosalie crossed her arms at the impending bloodshed, uninvolved and not invested, but my heart was turning to dust and my eyes couldn't look away.

"Edward," Alice spoke only to me, "if you don't save her, you'll never have her. If you don't save her, the only girl you could ever love will die."

"Don't get involved, Alice," Jasper warned her. "If this is nature's way of solving the problem"-

"Bella is not a problem," I said it as if talking to myself, finally saying aloud what I'd been too afraid to face. "I want her."

Whatever my siblings' responses were to my admission, I didn't know. I leapt and landed beside Bella just in time to put my hand to the side of the truck and stop it from crushing her where she lay on the ground next to me, the vampire there to protect her.

How ironic.

"Whoa! What just happened?"

"Tyler, are you okay?"

"Somebody call an ambulance! The truck just hit Bella Swan!"

"What?"

"Oh, my God!"

The humans erupted into a frenzy, and I could smell the boy's flowing blood, but none of it mattered. My all-consuming thought was for the fragile hands that held onto me, the face that stared up at me unafraid but with plenty of questions, the supple mouth parted in a gentle gasp.

"Are you hurt?" I asked her and she shook her head.

"No," she answered. "How are you here?"

But she already knew. I could tell by the way she clung to me with the assurance of where she was and who she was with. Encircled in my arms and at peace with a guy who had just stopped a truck with his bare hands, she had to know how and why I was here. It was the same reason she had yet to scream for her life, mistakenly trusting me with the very thing I wanted most from her.

"Because you're here," I answered her just as I had in Phoenix. "That's why I'm here."

I stood her to her feet and when she was steady walked away. Frantic humans found her the minute I left her, but I didn't mind. Under the cover of the cacophony, the Cullens slipped away, unnoticed to face the consequences of my decision.

"_**She changes your mind  
When you see the joy in her eyes  
It makes you feel  
It makes you feel" –Copeland  
**_


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Just an idea bubble I had. Please note the following:**

**Andrew is a thirteen year old boy the Cullens have adopted, but since Carlisle has patented a new method of changing into a vampire, Andrew is still slightly human. His full change won't be complete for a few years yet giving him time to grow (who wants to be thirteen forever?), so he still eats food and bathes and grows like a human.**

**Bella is not an only child. She has three sisters**

**Cari (age 20)**

**Evie (age 17 and Bella's twin sister)**

**Cece (age 13 and Andrew's bff)**

**Also: I DO NOT own Twilight! It is the wonderful creation of none other than Stephenie Meyer herself!**

**~*Please note that constructive feedback is much appreciated*~**

* * *

Cecelia

"Hey, Jake!"

"Whoa!" Jacob Black had to blink several times before finally getting a handle on who it was shuffling in a pair of beat up Converse on the threshold of his house. Hands stuffed in her pockets, back arched against the chilly wind, and chocolate hair reaching out to brush against his face, Cecelia Swan looked almost exactly the way he remembered her…only now she wasn't pouring sand over his head.

"Cece!" he shouted and bear hugged her. "Wow! Look at you! You are so not five years old anymore!"

"I'm more along the lines of thirteen now."

"Dude, that's insane!" Jake whistled at the years that had flown by. "I swear, you were just tattling on me for pulling your pigtails! But it's great to see you. When did you get in town?"

"Well," she bit her lip, "I came a few weeks ago, but then I left again, and now Izzy and Evie are back, and for awhile so am I. So, what do you say? Can I come in? I know I probably should've called first, but I'm kind of freezing my butt off out here…"

"Yeah, yeah! Get in here!" He held the door open wide to give her the space she needed to slip inside, and then ordered her to sit in a chair by the stove. "Ha!" he laughed. "Your cheeks are blue!"

"Oh, sure, poke fun at the cold girl who walked here to see you."

"You walked?" Jake gasped and almost spilled the warm milk he was pouring for her. "Seriously? It's freezing outside! Why didn't you get Izzy or Charlie to drop you off?"

"Charlie's working," Cece made excuses while shaking the frost out of her hair. "Evie is studying, and Izzy has been kind of incognito lately, if you know what I mean." And then seeing he had no clue what she meant added, "Izzy has a boyfriend."

"Oh."

"Anyone we know?" Billy Black wheeled into the kitchen with a broad grin for Cecelia and a radio sitting on his knees. "Hey, there, Kid!"

"Hey, Billy!" she didn't hesitate to wrap him up in a hug. "It's really great to see you again!"

"It's better to see you, trust me!" Billy chuckled. "I've seen more life in Charlie since you girls have been here than any other time I can remember. Poor guy has been alone too long. Wow," he cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. "You know, I never noticed it until now, but you are the spitting image of Renee. You know that?"

"Yeah," Cece nodded resignedly. "It gives people seizures, think they're seeing double. Charlie always tells me it doesn't bother him, but I know it does. Sometimes he can hardly look at me."

"That's tough," Billy nodded in agreement. "We all know Charlie was devoted to your mother, and the way things ended…not cool. Speaking of relationships, what were you saying about Bella?"

"She's seeing someone, and, yeah, you definitely know him. So what's up with the radio?"

"Oh!" Billy flipped a switch upon remembering and set the machine on the countertop so a Shakira song could echo through the house.

"_There's a She –Wolf in your closet. Open up and set her free. Aaaaooooh! There's a She –Wolf in your closet. Let it out so it can breathe."_

"This is Jake's favorite song," Billy smiled, never noticing the humiliation on his son's face until Cecelia broke out in uncontainable laughter.

"Come on, Dad!" Jake whined. "Of all the people to say that to, why would you tell her?"

"Son, you don't have to be embarrassed! Go on and show Cecelia that little dance you do whenever you hear the song. I personally love this song! I wish I had a She –Wolf waiting for me in my closet!"

"Aw, that's so nasty!" Jake heaved. "Come on, Dad! Don't talk about your love life –please!"

"Jake," Cece wheezed, "is there seriously a She –Wolf in your closet?"

"Shut up," he moaned, but she didn't stop. She couldn't stop.

"Are you in a closet, Jake? Because if you are, you should open up the closet and set yourself free! You should let it out so it can breathe!"

"I'm not staying here for this!" he slammed a cup of milk on the table for her and began to walk away. "I'm going to the garage to work on my car."

"Is it dirty?"

"Would you stop antagonizing me? And what do you know about stuff like that? You're twelve!"

"Thirteen, moron!"

But Cece said it to a door that flung open in the blustering wind and shut behind Jake with a loud thud that rattled the old photographs hanging from the walls.

"He's so funny."

"Looks like it's just you and me, Kid," Billy swung over to the counter and poured himself a glass of warm milk. "Don't mind Jake any. He's got a soft ego, you know? He's a nice guy, but sometimes it gets the best of him. You could apologize to him and everything would be fine…but then again, I've never known you to apologize."

"I apologize," Cece took casual defense, "just not first. Anyway, I didn't come here to see Jake. I actually came here to see you."

"Me?" Billy's face peeled back into a generous smile as he settled farther into his chair, cradling his milk in his rough hands. "I'm honored, Cecelia. You know, when you and your sisters stopped coming to Forks it took me awhile to adjust. No one listens to my stories but you four. How sad is that? A crippled old man can't even get a word in edgewise around here. You remember the stories, don't you?"

"Every word," Cece nodded. "I used to love your stories, Billy, about your ancestors being wolves and all the great battles they fought. It was so cool to me, especially to see all those medallions you inherited. I used to be so jealous that Jake would inherit all of it one day."

"You and Jake never quite got along, did you?"

"No," Cece smirked ironically. "He always preferred my sisters to me because Cari is the fun one, Evie is the nice one, and Izzy is the pretty one. I'm just the little sister who gets on everybody's nerves. You can't blame Jake for picking them over me; any day of the week everybody else would do the same thing. God!" she sighed, batting away the hot tears threatening to spill. "I'm just so sick of being the invisible one! I, um…I had this friend. I met him a few months ago on my in and out visits to Charlie. His name is Andrew Cullen."

Billy's face remained carefully calm, but there was a flash of foreboding in his eyes. "Oh, you mean the youngest boy? Yeah, sure, I've seen him around. I didn't know he's your friend."

"He's not anymore."

"That's probably for the best."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing," Billy retreated carefully. "All I meant was that you're a great girl, Cecelia, no matter what you think, and anybody who steps out of your life doesn't deserve to be apart of it. Want some apple pie? Sue made a batch of them and brought a few slices over last night. I think we may even have some ice cream; is that still your favorite dessert?"

"Billy."

The stillness of Cece's voice forced him to stop moving, to pay attention to the words he already knew she would say.

"I know about the Cullens."

"Did Jake tell you?" Billy wheeled around to face her intently, gaze suddenly ancient and inescapable.

"No," she shook her head.

"Did any of my people tell you?"

"No."

"Good!" he dared to breathe again and ran a hand through his midnight hair. "Good, good, good! At least _that_ didn't go wrong. So, wait a minute, Cecelia. If my people didn't tell you, then how do you know…what exactly do you know?"

"I know that the Cullens are vampires," she explained, "and I know that because Andrew Cullen told me."

"Because you were his friend," Billy understood. "He must've thought he could trust you."

"I just can't deal with it, Billy," Cece shivered in on herself. "I can't look at him or be alone with him when I know what I know. I wish he'd never told me and we could back to the way things were. We had so much fun together, and for once in my life I wasn't the after thought. For once in my life I got picked before any of my sisters, and it felt so good."

"You did the right thing," Billy laid a hand on her shoulder in assurance. "I'm sorry it had to be like this, but you can't be alone with the Cullens. It's too dangerous. If I had my way, they wouldn't be allowed anywhere near this town."

"I know," Cece sniffled and wiped her face on her sleeve. "That's why I'm here. I was remembering all your stories the other night, and I realized that if the Cullens being vampires can be true, then your family being descended from wolves can be true, too."

Billy's mouth folded into a tight line, and for a second she thought he wouldn't answer. "You've always been more clever than your sisters."

"Isn't it true, Billy?" she pressed. "You and your people are werewolves, right?"

"What if we are?"

"Then you can help me get rid of the Cullens once and for all."

"Get rid of them? Huh!" Billy snorted. "Sorry, but no can do."

"But you have to!" Cece was on the verge of begging. "Please, Billy! The Cullens need to leave Forks and never come back ever again!"

"I agree with you, but unfortunately I don't make the rules. I never have. But it's alright, Cecelia, I promise. Just stay away from them and you won't get hurt, or at least that seems to be the way it's been going. They stay away from people, people stay away from them, and everyone's fine."

"Bella is dating Edward Cullen."

Saying the words was hard enough, painful and scary and terrible enough, but the look on Billy's face after her confession made Cecelia want to crawl into the ground and smother herself.

"What do you mean?" he asked, but his voice sounded different, old and forbidding, and was she imagining it or could Cece hear drums beating faintly in the background, discordant and ominous?

"Cecelia," he repeated himself, "what do you mean?"

"We were all supposed to stay with Charlie for a few months while Renee traveled with Phil, but when we got here Charlie was in the hospital being quarantined because he had mold in his house."

"Mold?"

"Yeah. Andy did it weeks ago when he brought a science project over and it kind of erupted. Charlie told us we had to stay with the Cullens until he was feeling better. We didn't really mind because we all knew Andy, but then…things got really weird, Billy! Edward kept staring at Bella when he thought no one was looking, and he was always holding his breath around her. He stalked her wherever she went, and he pretended like he didn't care about her when really he listened to every word she said. He's obsessed with her! It wasn't until I saw Andy drinking the blood that I knew how bad things were, though."

"They fed in front of you girls?" Billy's skin was the only thing keeping him together as his outrage threatened to tear him apart.

"No," Cece rushed to explain. "They said Andy was sick, so on my way to school I went to his room to say goodbye and that's when I saw Dr. Cullen feeding him blood. Afterwards, I went back to talk to him, and that's when he told me the truth about him and his family. I haven't talked to any of them since, but none of my sisters believe me. Cari's getting married so she doesn't care enough to believe me, Evie knows I'm right but she's pretending it doesn't exist, and Bella thinks I'm being ridiculous. She's running around with a friggin' vampire who can and wants to kill her, and she won't listen to me long enough to know better!

"You have to help me, Billy, please! Edward Cullen is going to kill my sister unless I stop him, but I can't do it alone."

Billy fell into silence when she was done, brooding in the same silent trouble as the storm clouds moving to sit over the treetops. Cece could see them in the window past Billy's head, purple shadows of the inevitable, signs of a future she had no control over but it would pour down on her anyway.

"Is she gone yet?" Jake burst back into the house, and seeing Cece sitting teary-eyed across from his father stopped him in his tracks. "What's going on?"

"Get the car," Billy gave quiet command. "Take Cecelia home. No stops, no detours –straight home, do you hear me?"

"A storm's about to blow in!" Jake scoffed. "You want me to drive in that?"

"Jacob," the authority sounded, "we can't fear the storm, Son. We must face it."

"What are you talking about?"

"Take Cecelia home. Now. And Cecelia?" he stopped her at the door. "For what it's worth, I don't think you're the invisible one. I think you're the brave one, the bravest one of the bunch. I will do everything in my power to help you."

* * *

Andy

"Hey, Cecelia, it's Andy…again. Come on, Cece, just call me, okay? I've been trying to reach you every day since you left, and I'm not going to stop until you acknowledge me so…You know, if the roles were reversed, I would never turn my back on you, especially not for something you couldn't help. I don't understand how we could be best friends one day, and then you find out one thing and suddenly won't have anything to do with me. I mean, I risked a lot telling you the truth like I did, but I wanted to be honest with you. I felt you deserved that, and you throwing it in my face like this really hurts. Just call me, okay? We should talk. Bye."

Andrew hung up and put his head in his hands, hoping the phone lodged between his fingers would ring. Part of him wanted to tell Cecelia off for how cruel she was being, and part of him wanted to get in a car and drive all the way to Phoenix to see her. Why not? Edward had gone to Phoenix to see Bella. Why couldn't he go to see Cecelia? No. He'd been dead for awhile now, yet he still wasn't old enough to have a license yet alone a car.

Carlisle said that his body was now stable enough for him to have a regular birthday, and next week Andrew would be fourteen. In about three more years, he would be seventeen and all of his treatments would be over. He'd be perfect just like the rest of his family, flawless and a full vampire. Maybe then Cece would want him? Wasn't that why Bella wanted Edward despite the fact that he was a vampire? Edward was perfect, so maybe in three years when Andrew was perfect Cece would want him, too?

"Don't do that to yourself," Alice came silently behind him, placed a hand on his poor little head. "You're a great guy, Andrew, and anyone who can't see that doesn't deserve you."

"Why does it all work out for him?" Andy asked pitifully. "Why him and not me?"

"Because Edward has been alone for almost a hundred years and he deserves to be happy. Give me the phone, Andrew," Alice took the sleek device before he could volunteer it to her. "Cecelia is not going to call you."

"I know," he nodded resignedly, finally acknowledging the truth he'd been fearing. "I know."

"**They're different from us which means they can't be trusted.**

** We must sound the drums of war." –Pocahontas** (1995 film)


	9. Chapter 9

Final Chapter **(Part 1 of 2)**

** ~*Hey, everyone! Sorry for the super–long wait!*~**

**A/N: Just an idea bubble I had. Please note the following:**

**Andrew is a thirteen year old boy the Cullens have adopted, but since Carlisle has patented a new method of changing into a vampire, Andrew is still slightly human. His full change won't be complete for a few years yet giving him time to grow (who wants to be thirteen forever?), so he still eats food and bathes and grows like a human.**

**Bella is not an only child. She has three sisters**

**Cari (age 20)**

**Evie (age 17 and Bella's twin sister)**

**Cece (age 13 and Andrew's bff)**

**Also: I DO NOT own Twilight! It is the wonderful creation of none other than Stephenie Meyer herself!**

**~*Please note that constructive feedback is much appreciated*~**

* * *

Edward

"So, you don't have to come if you don't want to. I mean, it's in town and all, but there might be sun that day, not to mention my entire family is going to be there and I completely understand if you're freaked out meeting them all so soon…"

I watched Bella's lips scrunch and twist cutely while she babbled on. From the vantage point where I lay on the small couch I kept in my room, staring up at her hovering face, she seemed anxious, almost tormented. You'd think she was asking me to commit some heinous murder for her sake (which, I'm almost ashamed to say, I would) instead of asking me on a date. Who did she think she was giving me a choice to opt out of it? She had to know I could never refuse her anything, would never intentionally do anything to disappoint her, didn't she?

No, I had to smile to myself when I reached up to tangle my fingers in her hair and she hid her face in the palm of my hand embarrassed and blooming red. She had no idea what she did to me.

"Bella," I answered her, "I'd be honored to be your escort to Carilyna's wedding. How could you think otherwise?"

"Well, I didn't know if you wanted to get all dressed up," she diverted her gaze to one of the pillows stacked beneath us and subconsciously beat it with the tips of her fingers to the exact tempo of the music. We had Chopin playing on the stereo, one of the elite songs we'd claimed as "our songs" ever since that blissful day she'd said yes to me. To me!

She was the beauty and I was the monster, yet she could see something good in me. It was so crazy there were times I couldn't believe it was real, yet here she was with me now, very real and very touchable.

"I'm the luckiest sinner there ever was," I found myself musing aloud, and she glanced up to stare pointedly at me, puzzled. "I don't deserve you," I explained. "You know, I've never seen you in a dress before." I felt my smile pull wider, and with every inch gained Bella ducked her head lower, trying to escape me and my arms suddenly snaking around her waist to pull her next to me, a gesture becoming increasingly easier the more we spent time together. "This will be interesting."

"I'm not wearing heels!" she protested like a little child, but I knew how to play that game.

"You will once Alice gets wind of your decision. After all, she'll be at the wedding anyway because she promised to do Carilyna's makeup; don't think she won't ambush you, Bella."

"I bet you'd love that, wouldn't you?"

"Are the bridesmaids' dresses blue?" I asked against her neck and couldn't help the gentle growl that escaped me at her breathless giggles, her half-hearted protests for me to stop. She smelled delicious. "I love you in blue. The color does marvelous things to your complexion."

"Edward, you need to behave yourself!"

"Okay," I released her, but she held onto me.

"I didn't mean _now_," she clarified sheepishly. "I meant at the wedding. You'd better behave yourself in front of my family because I'll never be able to explain any of your antics to my uncles. Or Charlie. Ugh!" she shivered. "I'll get teased and scolded for days!"

"I'll be on my best behavior," I vowed feeling impish even as I spoke. "I promise. Oh, god!" I suddenly closed my eyes and bumped my head against the wall behind me. "They're back."

"Who's back?" Bella frowned at me.

"The ants," I explained, and then, realizing how strange my behavior must seem to her, felt compelled to elaborate. "When we first moved to Forks we discovered that all the moisture from the rain and the overcast from the clouds makes for some pretty nasty insect visitors. We've had infestations."

"Infestations?" Bella itched uncomfortably at the word. "What kind?"

"Termites at first so Emmett, Jasper, and I scrapped the bulk of the wood that had once made up the outside of our house and converted to glass. The next one was the worst, though –an ant colony moved in. It wasn't such a dilemma until we found out Rosalie is actually myrmecophobic."

"Huh?"

Bella's confused face was hands down my favorite, and I relished it now.

"What does 'myrmecophobic' mean?"

"It's the fear of ants," I supplied and watched her process this with an incredulous laugh.

"Edward, are you seriously telling me that Rosalie, the goddess vampire, is afraid of _ants_? Ants? Is this a joke?"

"No, and anyone who laughs at her will find that out the hard way. It's unconventional, but the fact remains: Rosalie is deathly afraid of ants. When we had the first infestation, she nearly lost her mind. They were everywhere she looked –in her room, on the couch, swarming on her brushes…now they're back."

"How do you know?"

"Because," I felt my face rearrange into curious lines. "I can hear them marching in the walls…but you can't," I remembered now with a wry smile. "You're my little human after all."

"Well!" she huffed in feigned indignation. "Forgive me my humanity!"

"Your humanity is your greatest virtue, Bella. There's nothing to forgive."

"You say the most amazing things!" she buried her head into my shoulder a bit helplessly, and then reached out for my stereo to switch the music. "Here, let's find something else to listen to so you don't have to hear the ants go marching one by one inside your walls. Ooh! I love this song!"

"You're joking, right?" I asked as Coldplay's song "Yellow" came streaming through the speakers. "Coldplay, Bella? Seriously? They're so commercial! Everyone has heard a Coldplay song, but what about the truly original stuff?"

"Like what?" she challenged.

"Like the 'Sam's Town' album."

"What?" she chuckled. "You just like that band because they call themselves 'The Killers'!"

"Bella, that is not funny!"

But she wasn't listening to me. She was laughing, somehow and quite beyond my understanding, finding a way to poke fun at my darker nature. Was this girl even human? A human girl would be afraid of a vampire, yet she clung to me, so close to me I could hear the blood being pumped through her body. A human girl would find nothing funny about what I was, yet Bella it seemed to look for chances to chuckle at me. It made no sense.

"Lighten up, Edward!" she lightly shoved me. "Listen to these lyrics and tell me they're not deep.

_Your skin--_

_Oh, yeah, your skin and bones_

_Turn into something beautiful_

_You know--_

_For you I bleed myself dry_

_For you I bleed myself dry_."

The words were out before she could realize what she'd just said, and when she finally did it froze even her where she sat, finally phased by the situation and the weight of us. And it was about time. The look on my face must've said it all because she moved away from me slightly, but still facing me and the anger I was fighting to contain.

"Do I still amuse you?"

"Edward"-

"This isn't funny, Bella! Your life is not a joke to me, and the thought of you ever being harmed because of me…can't you see that I would never forgive myself? How can you laugh when I can barely stand it?"

"Because I trust you," she spoke those same abominable words she'd told me before. I still could scarcely believe them now. "You won't hurt me, Edward, because, like you said, you'd never forgive yourself. But if it makes you this upset, then you're right, and I won't joke about it anymore. Now, I should probably be getting home," she swung her legs over the couch and stuck her feet back into her shoes, definitely ending the mellow we'd previously enjoyed and turning her back to me in the process.

I hated it when we fought. The space between us always seemed to magnify itself so that I couldn't reach her and she couldn't see me. That's exactly how it felt now despite the fact that she was still so close my breath could rustle her hair.

"Don't run from me, Bella," I begged her. "Please stay longer?"

"No, really, I can't. Billy Black and Jake are coming by for dinner tonight which means there's more for me to cook. I need to get a head start or else it'll be eight o'clock and everyone will be hungry and Charlie will want to know where I've been. Not good."

"The Blacks?" I went still and she noticed enough to turn and look me in my eyes for signs of offense. She wouldn't find any. I could hide my feelings if I needed to, despite how it tore me apart being untruthful with her when she was risking so much to be near me. "I didn't know you and the Blacks were close."

Could that be any more ironic?

"They're friends of the family," she told me but her expression was still on alert, trying to see past my façade and failing. "They don't usually come around, but with my family breezing in for Cari's wedding they want to visit everyone and talk about old times and stuff. I don't mind and Charlie loves it. They stay really late and keep him busy laughing."

So, the Blacks were coming around often and staying late. That sounded like a guard to me; they were safeguarding the Swans, and there was only one reason why they would do something like that.

"I need to be careful," Bella continued thoughtfully. "Billy's already been telling Charlie I spend too much time with you. If I come home late tonight Charlie might actually take him up on that. So, I should go now."

And there it was, the reason why the Blacks and their people had suddenly decided to surround the Swans like the ants now swarming into my house: they wanted Bella away from me. But, that wasn't apart of the treaty! The treaty was that I and my family wouldn't bite a human, not that we wouldn't love one, but then again Bella and I were so unconventional that the tribe had probably never thought there was a reason to include a clause like that. Now that they did have a reason, it was obvious that there was a new appendix to the treaty, and that it would be enforced with an iron fist.

"Edward?" Bella pushed the hairs away from my face. "Why aren't you talking?"

"Come on," I jumped to my feet in a move so quick I could tell it'd made her dizzy. "Let's get you home."

"Where's Izzy?"

"Evelyn? What's the matter, Dear? You look absolutely shaken!"

"Izzy's here, right? I need to talk to her _now_!"

"That's my sister!" Bella jumped at the voices wafting up to us from downstairs and ran down to meet them, heedless of her feet as usual. Luckily, I was there to catch her when she tripped, and landed her gently in front of her wild-eyed sister, Evelyn, who was literally coming apart at the seems with her tousled hair and fraying sweater.

"Izzy, thank God!" she howled when she saw Bella. "I'm so glad I found you! You've got to help me. You've got to do something!"

"What happened?" Esme tried to ask the girl again, but she only had eyes for Bella, intent as the sisters always seemed to be, that Bella could fix whatever problem they had. It was then that I noticed she carried a black clothes' bag over her shoulder, holding it almost as if she was trying to forget about it.

"Izzy, something terrible happened. Elise is in town!"

"Who?" I asked.

"Our second cousin," Bella informed me absently. "She's nice enough, but she's got this kid…"

"Spencer, the spawn of Satan!" Evelyn elaborated with ferocious meaning I'd never before seen the usually peaceful sister use. "You'll never believe what he did. Look," she unzipped the bag and pulled out a wedding dress –Carilyna's wedding dress, I assumed…completely drowned in chocolate.

"Oh, my God!" Both Bella and Esme simultaneously moaned, hands slapped across their mouths in disbelief and eyes bulging in horror.

"Are you kidding?" Bella touched the ruined fabric helplessly. "Is this a joke? The wedding is next week! Look at this dress! It's ruined! That kid is Satan!"

"Who are you telling? I warned him three times to leave the pudding bowl alone –in front of his mother, too! –but he took some anyway and now he's ruined everything! Cari doesn't even know. I thought about calling her, but she's stressed enough because of Jeremy's mother being in town, and…this is so messed up."

"This is a joke!" Bella begged the universe, visibly at her wits' end and I was hating it. "Evie, seriously? Cari has no idea that her wedding is next week and she as of now has no dress? This is a disaster. I don't even know what to do –if there's anything to do. Cari's going to kill somebody."

"Let me help," I offered, and Esme nodded her agreement.

"Yes, girls," she insisted, "there has to be something we can do, although I must admit I've never had to get chocolate out of my clothes before."

"Don't worry about it," Bella asked us listlessly as she zipped the dress back into the bag and slung it over her own burdened shoulders. "Evie and I will just have to call Cari and tell her what happened. She'll be upset, but I'm sure all of this will be behind us once she's married."

"If she gets married," Evelyn corrected as the twins made their way out the door. "Jeremy's mother has been really mean to her, Renee and Charlie are on the outs…this may be the straw that breaks the camel's back."

"Edward, we have to do something," Esme implored me no sooner had she closed the door. "Poor Carilyna! Maybe I could loan her my own wedding dress?"

"No need," Alice appeared at the top of the stairs in the calm we all knew meant she'd foreseen this. "Edward and I have a bridal appointment at Sophia's Boudoir in Portland. Come on, Edward."

"Come on Edward?" I echoed, resisting her tugs on my arm. "Why do I have to go? Can't you go with Esme or Rose, Alice?"

"Bella is your girlfriend, Edward, so her problems are your problems. Come on. If we miss this appointment we won't get another dress in time."

"Don't call her that."

"What?" Alice frowned at me as she slipped into the passenger seat of my Volvo. She was wearing her wedding ring which wasn't only unusual but also scary because I knew what part she would demand that I play. This was going to be painful.

"Don't call Bella my girlfriend," I told her. "It's fairly safe to say she's a lot more than that, don't you think?"

Alice didn't answer right away, and when I looked at her she was smiling that sly smile I needed no invitation to beware.

"So," she teased, "all this wedding talk is really getting to you, eh Edward?"

"No," I was adamant. "I'm not trying to get married, I'm just pointing out that given the circumstances, merely referring to Bella as my girlfriend is sort of ridiculous."

"Then change her title," Alice baited me. "Personally, I think it would be really fabulous to have another 'Mrs. Cullen' in the house, to have a sister I actually love."

"You don't love Rose?"

"I sometimes like her and always care about her but, no, there's no love there," Alice surprised me with her brutal honesty, but then again deep confessions like these were natural for she and I. We trusted each other with everything, even the ugly things.

"Which of her sisters do you think Bella confides in the most?" I asked aloud but was still thinking about it myself.

The question even made Alice frown. "I don't think Bella confides in anyone," she theorized. "She keeps things to herself. If anything, she probably confides in you the most which is scary enough. We all know you have a listening problem. Speaking of listening, I think I heard some ants moving in before we left. Did you?"

"Yeah, a whole colony of them. Don't tell Rose."

"Great!" Alice threw up her hands in disgust. "Now we'll have to get rid of them, and somehow that always means at least seven of my best outfits will be ruined in the process. And Emmett had better not use those smoke bombs again or I'll hang him!"

"Alice," I talked her off the ledge, "remember what happened last time you tried to hang Emmett?"

"I didn't try!" she defended herself. "I succeeded. I hung Emmett with the belt of my gorgeous Prada dress he'd ruined."

"And what happened?" I reminded her again, and she pouted.

"He untied himself and laughed at me. But he pretended to die for the first ten minutes! And when I'd chased him down and then tied him up, he'd been honestly uneasy, so there!"

"You sound like Bella."

"Everyone sounds like Bella to you; everyone looks like Bella to you. She's always on your mind because you're in love with her. Just marry her already."

"No!" It came out as a guttural growl that made the car shudder and made Alice halt mid-motion of applying another coat to her already perfect red lipstick.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry, Alice."

"Edward, what's wrong with you?"

"Bella sang this song to me and it's driving me absolutely insane! You know that Coldplay song 'Yellow'? There's this line in it"-

"For you I bleed myself dry," she nodded knowingly. "Potent words."

"Hearing Bella say them…" I trailed off shaking my head as the rage rose in my stomach, beat its fists against my chest. "I can't stand the thought of her bleeding herself dry for me."

"Not even willingly?"

"Especially not willingly! Why would she willingly do something like that?"

"Remember my vision, Edward," Alice warned me. "Bella loves you just as fiercely as you love her, and just as you sacrifice yourself to be with her, she would and does sacrifice herself daily to be with you. How long do you really think you can keep her as a human, Edward? If she asks you for an eternity together, what will you say to her? No, because your pride won't let you accept her gift to you?"

"It's not my pride that speaks, Alice. It's my conscience."

"I wonder what your conscience will say to you when you lose her, when she dies because you could've saved her and decided not to? There are only two paths for her Edward. I've told you this before. Either she will become one of us or she will die at your hands. However, no matter what happens, Bella will end up bleeding herself dry for you. The song makes you so angry because you know how right it is."

I felt so powerless, so totally out of control of the situation before me, the fact that the fate of the person I loved the most rested in my hands, and either way I was doomed to destroy her. Or I could save her somehow and destroy myself.

"We're here," I announced as I pulled into a parking space outside of Sophia's Boudoir. "How are we doing this?"

"I'm your fiancé and you're here because you couldn't resist seeing me in my dress. You have to say it just like that so the salespeople feel excited for us and spend more time with us than they do on the other customers. Make you sure you lay the charm on especially thick when I ask them to make all the alterations today so I can have the dress in time for the wedding, alright? Let's do this!"

* * *

Bella

"Do you really think so, Billy?"

"Absolutely, Charlie. Edward Cullen is too much for Bella, a rich kid too arrogant to truly respect her. How many times do you think he's been told 'no' in his life? How much do you think he listens to the word? And how healthy is it that she's with him so much? You should tell him he can't take her out so often; at least then he'd be forced to spend time with her here where we could all watch him."

"That's not such a bad idea, but I'd have to wait until all these people get out of my house. You know, Renee is thrilled abut him for whatever reason. She'd never stand for me putting the reins on Bella and Edward's relationship, but I'm starting to think you're right about all this, Billy. Bella was late getting home to cook tonight, and I'm not trying to turn her into a slave or anything, but she's never late, and when she says she'll be home at a certain time I expect her to be home."

"As you should! Put the clamps on Edward, Charlie. Show him you mean business. I'll support you."

"Thanks, Billy. I appreciate you being so concerned with my girls. The Cullens were very nice to them while I was quarantined, and don't get me wrong –I don't think this Edward kid is evil. I just think he needs some boundaries, and I'm going to give him those boundaries starting with how much time he thinks he can spend with Bella. I already told Carilyna not to allow Bella to bring him to the wedding. It's a family affair after all. I'm honestly worried here, Billy. Bella is making Edward her entire life. It's like…it's like she's in love with him or something. Is that even possible at seventeen?"

"No, it isn't. Nip this in the bud, Charlie."

The plate broke in my hands.

I stared for a moment at the two separate pieces caught in the soapy dishwater in shock. I'd never broken a plate before, especially not out of anger. Yet hearing Billy and Charlie discussing me like a toddler instead of the young adult who had not only prepared their full course meal but was also now cleaning up their mess without any help made me angry enough to storm in there and correct them in the biting way I'd heard Renee correct Charlie dozens of times before.

I didn't, of course.

I stayed in the kitchen cleaning up like a good kid, and thanked my lucky stars Edward wasn't around to see my bleeding fingers. That would've been another problem entirely.

"I'm back," Cari trudged tiredly into the kitchen with Evie trailing her guiltily, both shrugging out of their jackets and falling into the two chairs at the rickety kitchen table. "Hey, Izzy. Did we miss dinner?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "How did the cake tasting with Mrs. Vanderbilt go?"

"Terrible," Cari moped. "Jeremy's mother officially hates me. She doesn't think I'm good enough for him because he's a solar engineer and I'm…not. She called me a gold digger, and Renee called her a Botox Bimbo which, honestly, isn't far from the truth at all, but…you know what? I don't think I'm getting married after all."

"Cari, please don't say that!" Evie grabbed her arm pleadingly. "A relationship only has to work for the two people in it. It doesn't matter what anyone else says, right Izzy?"

"Right," I agreed with more conviction than either of them could know. "You're marrying Jeremy, not his mother."

"Maybe you could elope?"

One glance at Evie and I knew exactly where she was going with this suggestion. I plowed ahead with her blindly, finally glimpsing an out to the wedding dress drama Cari had yet to know about.

"Yeah," I encouraged her. "You can leave all the planning and cakes and drama behind, Cari, and just go away alone with Jeremy. That would be romantic."

"It would," she agreed. "He'd elope if I really wanted him to. He never wanted a big wedding like this anyway. I did. He went through with all of this and paid for everything I wanted because I asked him to. He's such a good guy!" Her chin quivered pitifully and her eyes filled. "I messed up again just like a mess up everything else I touch."

"No, Cari, that isn't true!" Evie insisted. "You didn't do anything wrong –it was Mrs. Vanderbilt's fault. She thinks her family is too good, but they're not. Cari, please don't torture yourself like this."

"I'm going upstairs," Cari announced hollowly. "Where's my wedding dress? I want to stare at it and think of all the things that could've been."

"I'm hiding it," I stepped up to the plate before Evie's nerves could rat us out. "Elise and Spencer are visiting tomorrow, and I don't want him anywhere near your dress."

"Oh. Thanks, Izzy. It would be terrible if that kid got his grubby hands on my dress."

If only she knew.

Evie and I watched her leave while we stayed behind, stewing in our secret turmoil and hating it.

"When are we going to tell her?" she asked and I shrugged.

"I know I'm just prolonging the inevitable, but I really don't want to be the one to tell her about the dress. Where's Renee and Cece?"

"Staying in a hotel with Phil. Neither of them want to be here with Charlie."

"I'm starting to feel the same way, at least when Billy Black is around. Do you know he actually talked Charlie into uninviting Edward as my date to Cari's wedding?"

"Oh, is that why the Cullens backed out?" Evie frowned. "I stopped by there to apologize for my meltdown, and Dr. Cullen told me they wouldn't be coming to the wedding. At first I thought it had something to do with the Blacks but now I guess it was about Charlie."

"Why would it be about the Blacks?" I frowned. "What do they have to do with anything?"

"Well, it was only after I mentioned that the Blacks and a couple other Quileute families would be there that the Cullens said they weren't coming. For a minute, I almost thought they didn't like the Quileute people, or at least it felt like they had some sort of vendetta against them. Silly," Evie shook her head. "The Cullens are better than that."

Were they? I couldn't help remembering what had been said that day on the beach when I'd been told that the Cullens didn't go to the reservation, the "cold ones" weren't allowed on Quileute soil. That sounded like a vendetta to me. And now Billy was filling Charlie's head with horror stories about Edward…

"Trying to break us up," I put it together with a sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach.

But why? What was in it for Billy Black and the Quileute people if I was no longer with Edward? Was there some part of Jacob's story I'd missed?

Or maybe...

"Edward's keeping secrets," I realized aloud, never minding Evie's curious glance in my direction. After every declaration and all the promises we'd made, Edward was still being less than truthful with me, and it hurt more than I'd thought anything ever could.

"**I'm not ready **

**For the weight of us." –Sanders Bohlke **


End file.
